By Warren Rappleyea
North Brunswick Township High School’s baseball team’s April 23 victory over Hudson Catholic Regional High School was its second in a row after snapping a three-game losing streak the previous day against South River High School.
Against Hudson Catholic, center fielder Chich Petrillo pounded out three hits and drove in three runs, and shortstop Roger Gomez homered and drove in two runs to lead the way. Felix Diaz earned the win on the mound. Damien Ortiz also blasted a homer for the Raiders, who outscored Hudson Catholic, 6-3.
North Brunswick (6-2) defeated South River April 22, 7-2. Gomez homered and drove home three runs, and third baseman Neal Gaeta also hit a home run and drove home two runs in support of Eric Vasquez, who raised his record to 2-3.
Gomez, who is hitting .314, is tied for the team lead in RBIs with second baseman Justin Garcia at 13. Garcia leads the Raiders at the plate with a .452 average. First baseman Eric Reardon is batting .333 with seven RBIs and is 2-0 on the mound.
“We knew we would have some up and downs because this is a young team,” North Brunswick coach Ryan Lillis said. “We’ve made some mistakes, but our guys are doing a lot of good things — and their winning games.”
South Brunswick High School’s baseball team looks to turn things around after suffering five successive losses that have dropped its record to 7-6. The Vikings have gotten wins from six different pitchers. At the plate, second baseman Ryan Moran is batting .391 with nine RBIs. Outfielder Marco DiIusto is at .348, designated hitter Kevin Reyes is hitting .333 and right fielder Brandon Siroki is batting .276 with a team-leading 10 RBIs.
Boys volleyball
On the volleyball court, South Brunswick comes off a 2-1 (25-16, 20-25, 26-24) success against North Brunswick April 22. Saagar Mehta led the Vikings with 18 kills and seven digs, and Eric Savage added 10 kills. South Brunswick improved to 6-5.
On April 21, the Vikings fell to J.P. Stevens High School, 2-1 (26-28, 27-25, 15-25), despite a seven-kill, two-dig, two-block performance by Todd Blackburn. Seth Weingarten had 11 digs.
Following its loss to South Brunswick April 22, North Brunswick fell to 8-3. Bryan Ezeonu posted 12 kills, Shiv Rattan contributed 10 kills and Max Santana added 14 digs and three aces in the loss.
The previous day, the Raiders prevailed, 2-0 (25-13, 25-8), against Perth Amboy High School, as Ryan Jennings posted 19 assists, two aces and a pair of digs. Ezeonu added eight kills. North Brunswick downed Colonia High School, 2-0 (25-12, 25-11), April 19. Sree Yasa had six kills to go with four digs, and Prerak Patel had six digs, two aces and an assist.
Boys tennis
South Brunswick’s boys tennis team is 7-2 on the season following a pair of 5-0 wins over Sayreville War Memorial High School and Perth Amboy.
The Vikings have a solid trio of singles players in Vijay Chockalingham, Avi Ranadive and Ben Wang. Both Ranadive and Wang reached the semifinals of the Greater Middlesex Conference (GMC) Tournament.
South Brunswick’s second doubles tandem of Anuj Patel and Anirudh Suresh advanced to the GMC finals, where they were set to meet Tarush Aneja and Nihar Prabhala of J.P. Stevens. The Vikings’ first doubles team of Santosh Yelavarthy and Rashil Vishwanathan also reached the semifinals.
North Brunswick’s boys tennis team is having a strong spring as well. The Raiders are 5-2 following a 4-1 victory against Saint Joseph High School of Metuchen April 18.
Michael Mills and Wence Lara won their matches at second and third singles, while the doubles teams of Nail Jain and Ahkil Yetukuri at first doubles and Suraj Sanyal and Sahil Shah at second doubles also won their matches.
