The last-ever HCIAA Coviello softball championship game had reached the fourth inning last Sunday afternoon and the heavily favored Bruins of North Bergen found themselves in a very familiar position in a title game.
They were losing.
In each of the last four seasons, the Bruins made it all the way to the championship game – and lost each time. There were times when the Bruins were favored, like this year, and they fell short. There were others when they were the upstart underdogs, like last year, and still managed to come up shy. North Bergen has hung tough at times, threw away chances in others. But the results were always the same.
So now, the Bruins, who steamrolled through the regular season and the first two rounds of the Coviello playoffs without a single loss, found themselves staring at a 2-0 deficit. They were trailing Bayonne, a team that they had already defeated twice, at New Jersey City University’s athletic complex.
Immediately, the negative thoughts started to dance through the heads of the people occupying the North Bergen dugout.
“I have to be honest,” veteran North Bergen head coach Tom Eagleson said. “I really started to feel that way. I said to myself, ‘This really can’t happen again.’”
“Actually, I did think it was happening again,” said sophomore pitcher Carla Arismendi. “I tried not to think too much, but, of course, it was in my mind.”
Senior third baseman Andrea Jijon wasn’t going to have any part of the negative thoughts.
“I started to think that we had worked so hard for it, that we deserved it,” said Jijon, who started and played on three of the four teams that lost in the HCIAA Coviello finals. “We just had to win. We worked so hard all season, so we couldn’t lose in this game. These girls are like my sisters. It was my honor to be in that game with this team. But we were simply not going to lose this championship. Not this time.”
In the bottom of the fourth, the Bruins had sliced the Bayonne lead to 2-1. The Bruins had a runner on first base and no out after Jazmin Palma led off with a single. With pitcher Arismendi approaching the plate, everyone was anticipating a bunt.
That is, everyone except Eagleson.
“I called time out and called Carla to me,” Eagleson said. “I told her to square around to make it look like you’re bunting to draw the infield in, then hit it over the infield.”
While Arismendi has earned a highly respected reputation as one of the top pitchers in Hudson County, her ability at the plate often gets overlooked.
“I knew that Carla could turn the game around with one swing,” Eagleson said. “She’s really having a great year at the plate and has 36 RBI.”
“No one really thinks of me as being a hitter,” Arismendi said. “In that position, I wasn’t nervous at all. I just wanted to hit the ball hard.”
Eagleson wanted his pitcher to hit the ball over the infield.
“I had no idea that she was going to hit it over the fence,” Eagleson said.
Sure enough, Arismendi blasted a two-run homer over the left field fence, giving the Bruins a 3-2 lead.
“Once we had the lead, we just had to ride Carla’s arm,” Eagleson said.
“Even I wouldn’t have thought that I would be the one to hit the home run,” Arismendi said. “It was pretty amazing.”
Arismendi carried the Bruins the rest of the way, as the Bruins then rolled to a 5-3 victory. The albatross was removed from Eagleson’s neck. They finally had their county championship. Finally.
“I can’t tell you how nice it was to be able to go back to school and not have to hide my face,” Eagleson said.
Before the game, Eagleson joked how he had become like Marv Levy, the head coach of the Buffalo Bills who lost four straight Super Bowl appearances. He even answered the phone at his home, saying, “Marv Levy Fan Club.”
But it was definitely eating at the veteran coach that the Bruins couldn’t get over the top. Until now.
“I knew that if we were going to do anything, this was the year,” Eagleson said. “But when you get to the finals, who knows what can happen? Anything can happen. We’ve proven that.”
It marked the 11th HCIAA title that North Bergen has captured under Eagleson’s 25-year coaching career. It’s also the last, because the HCIAA will be disbanded at the end of this season, as part of the NJSIAA’s massive realignment plan.
“To be honest, I never even thought of that,” Eagleson said. “Now I realize it. It feels just as good as the first one we ever own. I hate to say it, but we really deserved this one. And these girls are the nicest bunch of kids. They’re easy on the nerves.”
Arismendi struck out eight in gaining the victory, her 21st win of the year. But everyone will always remember the clutch homer, a lot like the one Carol Cook hit to give the Bruins their lone state championship 22 years ago.
It didn’t take long for Eagleson to remember a long-time friend who wasn’t around to enjoy the long-awaited title. Joe Tatano, who was a volunteer assistant coach with the Bruins for ages, died before the start of the 2008 season.
“When I got the trophy, I lifted it up to Joe and told him that it was for him,” Eagleson said.
Tatano had a habit of calling the Bruin players “pineapples.” They’ve honored his memory by putting a pineapple on their uniform sleeve since he passed last year.
“After the game, the girls were talking about getting championship jackets and asked me if they could get a pineapple on the jacket,” Eagleson said.
Nice gesture.
“We wanted to win this championship real bad this time,” Jijon said. “It was definitely worth the wait.”
Now, the Bruins move on in the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 1, Group IV state playoffs, where they will face Union City. The Soaring Eagles moved on, courtesy of their upset win over West Orange in the first round. It was the first time that a Union City school, either Emerson or Union Hill or the new Union City High, ever won a state playoff game in softball.
It will be the fourth time the two neighboring rivals will have faced each other this season.
“We’ll be ready,” Arismendi said. “We don’t want this to end.” – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.