Woodies Roll To Back To Back Sectional Titles

Woodstown had powered their way through the South Jersey Group 1 bracket with an upset over 1 seed Audubon and then cruised past 4 seed Buena with a 15-8 win. That would set the stage for Woodstown to travel to Paulsboro to play the 6 seed Red Raiders for the South Jersey Group 1 crown. Woodstown was the reigning Group 1 champion heading into the game. Both skippers gave their southpaws the nod for the sectional final game.

Chase Rieger for Woodstown, and Dante Onorato for Paulsboro. Onorato got into trouble early, letting up 2 early unearned runs on back to back errors by the shortstop. Onorato would later give up a solo shot to left hit by Ben Woodruff. Rieger would be efficient throwing 5 scoreless frames until he let up an RBI single to Dante Onorato. Woodstown would answer back in the top of the 6th scoring another unearned run making it a 4-1 ball game heading to the top of the 7th. Doug King would only face 4 batters in the top of the 7th using his fielders to gain some sort of momentum heading into the home half of the 7th.

Paulsboro had a 2 out rally going as Dante Onorato picked up his 2nd RBI of the day and set up Hunter Zubec with bases loaded and 1 out. Woodstown pitcher Brent Williams collected a sword K’ing Zubec on a low and away breaking ball to complete the repeat. Woodstown had just secured their second consecutive sectional title!

Woodstown head coach gave a lot of credit to his pitchers Rieger and Williams for how adept they are. “We got bailed out by our pitchers and strikeouts today. We made some mistakes, I called a bad game early and ran ourselves out of some innings”. The Wolverines started off 9-7 and a tough loss to a good Rancocas Valley team made them reflect on who they are and what the program is about. “We had some weird things happen with our schedule and then we decided to pick up a game against Rancocas Valley the same day. We just mailed it in, we started making errors and bickering on the field, started pointing fingers and then at that point we had a very very serious conversation that said ‘That season is over, this is a new year and a new team’”. That talk seemed to have work because the players bought in and are still the kings of South Jersey Group 1. Woodstown will host Point Pleasant Beach on Tuesday, June 13th in the Group 1 state semifinal. 


Chris Baker from NJ Athletics. You can reach Chris on Twitter (@cbake_51) or you can reach him by email (cbake2025@gmail.com). Be sure to check out NJ Athletics on Instagram (@NJAthletics) and on Twitter (@nj_athletics)
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