For three innings last Saturday, it looked as if the wheels were coming off the wagon that represented the County Prep baseball team. After winning 19 of 21 games in impressive fashion all season, the Hurricanes waited until the HCIAA Seglio Division championship game to produce their first real stinker of the campaign.
The Hurricanes threw the ball all over the field. They made mental mistakes galore – totally uncharacteristic of the way they played throughout the year. They didn’t hit, didn’t field, didn’t run and looked, for all intents and purposes, as a defeated squad. Their opponent, St. Joseph of the Palisades, had the momentum and had the spirit. “We were dead in the water,” County Prep veteran head coach Mike Zadroga said. “There’s no other way to put it. Everything was going wrong.”
The Hurricanes were trailing, 6-0, after three innings. Prospects didn’t look good. It was time for the coach to resort to drastic measures.
It wasn’t a Knute Rockne speech or a diatribe from the pages of Vince Lombardi’s motivational journal. Zadroga just offered some simple words.
“I told them that we got them right where we wanted them,” Zadroga said. “At that point, what else can you say? I tried to get their attention. I think what I said really relaxed them a little, because soon after, they started to play.”
And very quickly, the tides turned. The Hurricanes were the confident and relaxed bunch, while the Blue Jays were the ones looking over their shoulders, waiting for the favored Hurricanes to pounce.
“It really did seem that way,” Zadroga said.
The Hurricanes scored three runs in the third inning, cutting the lead to 6-3. George Gentile, who had three RBI for the day, drove in a clutch run, as did starting pitcher Alberto Medina. The comeback was in full force.
After the Blue Jays added a run, making the score 7-3, the Hurricanes tied the score in the sixth inning with four runs, two coming on Gentile’s clutch double.
In the seventh, Andy Minier, the team’s No. 9 hitter, delivered the two-out single that scored the game-winning run in an 8-7 County Prep victory, giving the Hurricanes their second straight HCIAA Seglio Division title.
“This one is a lot sweeter,” said County Prep shortstop/pitcher Louis Guzman, Jr. “Last year, we had a bad season and one good week. This year, we are having a good season and found a way to win a tough championship game.”
The Hurricanes were able to contain Blue Jay slugger Gil Zayas, who did have a triple and a single and drove in two runs, but didn’t allow the league’s premier player to inflict any more damage in the final innings, sealing the victory.
“It’s a great win,” said Zadroga, who has now won two HCIAA titles with the Hurricanes to go with the one he won at Dickinson High School in 1974 and the one he won at Hudson Catholic in 1995. “They managed to pull it off and make a good comeback. It’s really been a good year for us.”
And it’s a year that got better after the win on Saturday, because the upstart Hurricanes managed to topple Memorial, 4-0, in an independent game on Wednesday, giving Zadroga’s team their 20th win of the season against two losses.
The Hurricanes next face Becton in the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 2, Group I state playoffs. Becton toppled Weehawken in the first round of the playoffs on Monday. – Jim Hague