The Hamilton West baseball team had to pick itself up off the mat twice this season.
And the Hornets did just that in enjoying their finest campaign since winning the Group III championship in 2000.
The season ended in heartbreak, with a 2-0 loss to eventual state champion Mainland in the NJSIAA Group III semifinals at The College of New Jersey. But the overall body of work was impressive.
“Right now it doesn’t feel good,” senior designated hitter Tyler Barlow said immediately following the Mainland loss. “Looking back in a couple weeks, winning that (Central Jersey Group III) title will feel good. But it’s not feeling good right now at all.”
Time will heal, of course, and the Hornets will reflect with pride on a season in which they went 19-6-1, gained a berth in the Mercer County Tournament finals for the first time since 1998, reached the CJ III championship game for the first time since 2003 and won the sectional crown for the first time since 2000.
This all came after the Hornets started the season a scuffling 1-2 after returning a slew of players from a talented 2013 team. They tied Robbinsville, then went on a tear.
“We turned it around right there,” said Tino Malave, one of the Colonial Valley Conference’s top second basemen. “We had some meetings, a couple little talks, telling everybody to pick it up. At beginning of the year we were a little dead.
“After we started to pick it up, everybody was helping. We had, like, a core of five guys who were back from last year, but the whole lineup was very tough, everybody one through nine. There would be some games where we were kind of dead. But there was always one guy who would get the big hit for us or a new guy making a big play. The team chemistry was so good, everybody had each other’s back.”
Once Hamilton got it together, it won its third straight CVC Valley Division title and streaked all the way into the Mercer County Tournament finals before dropping an 11-inning heartbreaker to West Windsor-Plainsboro South.
After such a brutal loss, it remained to be seen if the Hornets could rebound in time for the upcoming Central Jersey Group III tournament. They never missed a beat, defeating Princeton, Jackson Liberty (in 10 innings), Wall and Steinert to end a 14-year sectional drought.
“Our senior class, there was just something about them,” coach Mark Pienciak said. “They bounced back from the loss in the county championship and showed such guts and resiliency to regroup and re-focus and go on that run.
“When things went wrong, they stuck together. I told them after (the CJ III title) game, I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re a fan or who you are, if you sit there and you’re pointing a finger at somebody for losing a game, you don’t know what the game of baseball is all about or what this team is all about. We never pointed fingers here.”
The senior class provided everything a team could hope for from its leaders. Gerry Gomez, Dan Garcia and Malave were all three-year varsity starters.
Gomez, who finished his career with 102 hits, played a stellar centerfield and batted .288 with 10 walks, 17 RBI and 18 runs scored. Gomez got his historic 100th hit in the CJ III final.
“We were in school the next day, and my teacher (basketball coach Jason Malloy) said there was no better way to write the script,” Gomez said. “You’re in the biggest game of your life against your biggest rival, and you get the hit in that game. It was great.”
Gomez replaced Garcia in center, as Garcia was moved to shortstop for the first time in high school. Garcia, who has Chase Utley leadership qualities with the quiet way in which he hustles every second, solidified the infield and hit a team-leading .369 with 16 stolen bases, 28 runs and 13 RBI.
Garcia went 3-for-3 in the CJ III title game in front of one of the largest baseball crowds anyone ever witnessed in Hamilton Township. The shortstop tried to block it out until there was one out to go, and then he soaked it in.
“Before the game everyone looked around, and everyone was kind of feeding off the crowd, “ he said. “After that, you’re blocking it out, not letting it get to you. You try to treat it as another game. To avoid losing those kind of games you gotta make all the plays.”
Garcia teamed with Malave to form a solid double play combination. Malave was also the classic leadoff man, hitting .333 with five doubles, five triples, 13 stolen bases, 19 RBI and a team high 32 runs scored. It seemed like whenever West needed a spark, Malave was there to stir things up.
Malave credited last year’s losses in the county and sectional semifinals as impetus for this year.
“That just made us want it more,” he said. “Last year we didn’t get a section title, and we had it in our heads to keep pushing and keep working hard to get a title.”
Gomez agreed, saying “We felt we didn’t play good enough against Wall (in the 2013 CJ III loss), and that kind of fired us up and gave us more motivation, knowing we could do something special and that this is our last year doing it. It motivated the entire team. We were in the game every inning and every pitch.”
Focus and desire doesn’t mean much without good pitching, and the Hornets had aces in seniors Cody Astbury and Mike Glazewski.
Astbury was one of the county’s best, going 7-2-1 with a 1.16 ERA and 57 strikeouts in 60.1 innings pitched. He threw a 10-inning gem in beating Jackson Liberty and did not allow an earned run in a 2-0 loss to Mainland.
Glazewski, a lefty, went 6-0 and matched Astbury with two state tournament wins. His 4.32 ERA was a little misleading as a few blow-up appearances helped inflate it.
Barlow, who did not play baseball for two years, returned as if he had never been away by hitting .350 with 13 RBI.
Rounding out the senior class was pitcher Justin Marcik (2-2, 3.42 ERA), pinch-runner Antonio Coriano and leftfielder Nick Leona, who made a memorable diving catch in the CJ III final.
While the Hornets lose a lot, they have some talent coming back as third baseman Nick Ziccardi, pitcher/third baseman Alex Cruz, first baseman Jordan Mucha, catcher Ross Talbot and rightfielder Kevin Smiegocki were all starters this season.
Mucha hit .290 and led the team with 23 RBI while scoring 15 runs. Smiegocki hit .320 with 14 runs and 14 RBI, Ziccardi had nine RBI and 10 runs, Talbot was stellar defensively and Cruz had a 1.57 ERA as a spot starter and reliever.
“Those guys have to commit themselves to some of the things they failed at, some of the things they need to improve on,” Pienciak said of the underclassmen. “They have to go into next season hungry. They can’t be satisfied with doing this once every decade. They have to want to get back there every single year and give themselves a shot.”
Hamilton had a definite shot at going all the way this year until a couple of mistakes cost it in the state semifinals. After the game, Astbury talked about the big picture.
“We’ve hung up CVC championship banners the last three years,” the hurler said. “This year, we have a sectional championship banner. So it’s something good to look at.”
West’s Dan Garcia holds a trophy aloft after the Hornets defeated Steinert, 4-1, May 30, 2014 to win the CNJ Group III title. (Photo by Albert Rende.),
