Sometimes getting better means getting back to where you were. For North senior Jono Chirumbolo, the 2005 baseball season is like returning home.##M:[more]## He tore the cartilage around his shoulder playing for the Knights’ football team during the fall of his junior year, putting himself out of commission for the rest of the football season and nearly all of last baseball season as well. (He managed to play in the last five games of 2004.)
But now, after surgery and rehabilitation, he is back hitting in the third slot in the Knights’ batting order (usually reserved for a team’s best hitter). “It really feels better than I thought it would feel,” Chirumbolo says. “I am still doing my rehab workouts to make sure it stays that way. For awhile I wasn’t able to slide into a base headfirst, but I can do that again if I want to. I’m feeling great.”
An aggressive hitter who rarely strikes out, Chirumbolo is slated to play first base as well as pitch. Although he is still working himself back into pitching shape, Chirumbolo is back in the lineup on a full time basis. “I feel like I’m a stronger and better hitter than I was my sophomore year simply because I’ve had to focus on hitting so much,” he says. “I’ve fine tuned a lot of things that way.”
In the process he says that he has developed a personal hitting style that allows him to hit for power as well as for average. “If I’m up and there is a runner in second, I feel can hit the ball to right field and knock that run in,” he says. “If the bases are loaded, I might be the one to put that ball out.”
A resident of West Windsor, Chirumbolo has a younger brother who is a junior on the North lacrosse team. His father works for Northwestern Mutual and his mother works at Princeton Hospital. Chirumbolo is not yet sure where he will go to college, but he is hoping to play baseball at the college level.
The return of a healthy Chirumbolo is just what could buoy the Knights past last year’s mark as the CVC’s Patriot Division champions, with a 15-9 overall record (10-4 in the division) into success on another level. North started by winning all its games down in Florida during its spring break training trip.
So far Chirumbolo has led North to a, 7-1, record, including having three hits, three runs scored and five RBIs on April 4 in a 20-3 trouncing of Trenton. (Senior Matt Olson has four hits in the same game as freshman Greyson Van Dyke got the starting pitching assignment.) North has also won impressive victories against Lawrence. Peddie, and Lawrenceville,
The Knights have lost only four players from last year’s team to graduation, but the lost players will be hard to replace — especially pitcher Cody Warner and catcher Derrick Servon (who had a .441 batting average last season and a strong throwing arm). But the Knights feel they may have a replacement for Servon in sophomore catcher Zach Weale. An all-start pitcher last summer for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Babe Ruth team last summer, Weale was named to the county all-star team, Weale is putting his strong arm toward catching in 2005.
Seniors Mike Elanjian (outfield) and third baseman Matt Olson can also hit for average and are fundamentally sound in the field. Junior Casey Warner — brother of Cody — is expected to pick up where his brother let off. With greater control and velocity than his brother, Warner is expected to be one of the CVC’s top pitchers. Juniors Dan Margiotti, who pitched a complete game two-hit shutout against Hightstown on April 13, and John Byrnes will also get plenty of innings pitched.
But for Chirumbolo, coming back to the field represents a personal victory. “”We were playing Trenton here at home on my first game back,” says Chirumbolo. “On my first swing back I hit a home run. It was kind of a wake-up call for me. It told me that my career wasn’t over just because I had surgery. It was a big pick-up for me.”
South
Despite beating all four teams it faced on this year’s spring training trip to Florida, South Coach Don Hutchinson, now in his 10th season as the Pirates head baseball coach, knows that turning a young team into a winner is a dicey proposition. “It’s really the luck of the draw,” he says. “We lost against the best two teams we faced (in preseason games) down there. Then we won all four regular season games. But it is good to get a few wins under your belt and get a little confidence on a team like ours that doesn’t have a lot of experience.”
After finishing with a 16-10 overall record (10-5 in the CVC) Hutchinson is faced with something of a rebuilding program. Although the Pirates have 12 seniors and seven juniors on the team, most have limited experience playing at the varsity level. Consequently, Hutchinson says that many positions on the team are still being decided particularly in the pitching staff, which is the key to any team’s success.
“Our pitching staff is still getting settled,” says Hutchinson. “We generally need four starting pitchers and that will probably begin to gel as the season progresses.” Among the pitching prospects are seniors Joe Huttner, Chris Ruiz, Casey Male, as well as juniors Eric Voightsberger, Steve Odachowski, and Richard McGinnis.
Huttner — who plays first base when he is not pitching — and senior catcher Matt Marini are sharing captains duties. Both are in their second season on the varsity team.
Huttner relies on just three pitches (fastball, curveball, change-up). “I’m not really a power pitcher,” says Huttner. “I just try to hit the locations, stay ahead of the batters, and throw strikes. I like to let our defense do some work out there.” Huttner pitched an excellent game against Princeton on April 12. Although the Pirates lost, 4-2, he pitched a complete game, allowing just five hits and a walk along with three strikeouts.
A resident of West Windsor, Huttner has been pitching since he was six years old. His sister is in eighth grade at Grover Middle School and is an avid softball and basketball player. “She is a good player and I’m sure she will make a name for herself in the next few years,” says Huttner. His father works for an advertising agency and his mother is a stay-at-home mom. Huttner isn’t sure yet where will he will attend college.
Marini, also a West Windsor resident, has played catcher since he was in the first grade. He is an only child and his father is the head of printing and sales for Ace Group while his mother is a secretary for Princeton Orthopedics. Marini expects to attend William Patterson in north Jersey.
Like his predecessor Rich Gawlak, a former all-star catcher for the Pirates, Marini calls all the pitches when he is behind the plate. “Our team doesn’t really have strikeout pitchers,” says Marini. “I just call pitches in order to try to get the ground out. I know we have good fielders and I am confident that they can get the job done.”
Marini says that calling pitches involves a thorough knowledge of his pitcher’s strengths and the batter’s weaknesses. It also involves strategy. “We want to fool the batter,” he says. “We will throw a change-up or a curveball with a count of 2-and-0 because everyone thinks that is the time to throw a fastball.”
Huttner says that he will occasionally shake off one of Marini’s called pitches. preferring to throw a different kind of pitch. “Early in the count I usually go with whatever pitch he calls,” he says. “Sometimes later in the count, sometimes I know something about the batter that makes me want to throw a particular pitch.”
When not pitching, Huttner plays first base. The rest of the line-up includes junior Chris Wesson at shortstop, Eric Maniere (a senior) and Male seeing time at second base, junior Brian Morris at third base, Odachowski or senior Ross Honig playing in left field, seniors Rob Engel or Mike Peterson playing in center field, and Voightsberger starting as the regular right fielder with senior Chris Cornick also seeing time there.
Like North, the Pirates have started the season with a string of victories, building a 6-2 record in the early going. After winning its Florida games, South defeated Steinert, 8-6, on April 7 when Marini notched three key hits and an RBI. South then lost to Hopewell on April 11, 20-10. After the close loss to Princeton, the Pirates bounced back with a 4-3 victory over Lawrenceville on April 13. Ruiz pitched a complete game, striking out six.
But setting aside the two blemishes to an impressive start to the season, Hutchinson is maintaining a flexible attitude. “This will probably be a more changeable lineup than I have had in the past,” says Hutchinson. “Before it was almost the same batting order every day. But that may not be the way with this team. It may eventually go that way, but maybe not.”
Solomon Out as South Grid Coach
Louis Solomon came to High School South in 2003 as only the third head football coach in the school’s 30-year history. Now, two years later, he is ready to hand over the reins next season to the fourth head coach in the team’s history.
Solomon will be returning to his high school alma mater, Franklin High in Somerset, to serve as head football coach. He will take over a Franklin program that has suffered through five consecutive losing seasons. As a two-time all-state quarterback, Solomon led the team to consecutive 10-1 seasons under current University of Notre Dame head coach and former New York Jets assistant Charlie Weiss. Solomon then served as team captain and four-year letter winner as quarterback at Clemson University, graduating in 1995.
Although when first hired, Solomon had hoped to install a high-powered run-and-shoot offense at South, he found that the available talent favored an attack combining running and passing. In his two years as Pirates’ head coach Solomon led the team to a 5-15 overall record, including a 3-7 record in 2004.
The high school football program at High School South has a long tradition of stability. Rex Walker coached from 1973 to 1977, with Tom Stuart taking over in 1978 before retiring as coach after the 2002 season. (Stuart continues to teach history at South.) After Stuart left the team, the school embarked on a four-month search in which over 20 candidates were considered from both outside the district as well as within. A similar search is expected in order to find Solomon’s replacement, according to district officials.
Solomon will also be leaving his teaching position as a special education teacher at Community Middle School.
