By Jeff Appelblatt
The baseball team at Woodbridge High School has had no problem piecing together victories this summer in the Greater Middlesex Coaches Summer Baseball League. After two weeks of play, the Barrons found themselves 6-0 and in first place in the Turf Division.
Winning the majority of games is nothing new for Woodbridge, which won 18 of the 28 it played during the spring season. And coaching his teams to victories is nothing new for head coach Lou Urbano. Between his 25 years coaching at each of the three rival schools in Woodbridge — Woodbridge, Colonia High School and John F. Kennedy Memorial High School — and coaching at Saint Joseph High School of Metuchen, the New Jersey Scholastic Coaches Association Hall of Famer has led his teams to 300 wins.
Urbano would be the first to admit he has a big advantage in getting wins in the summer. Between travel teams and other leagues, so many teams don’t send their best players onto the diamond for summer ball. At Woodbridge, though, they’re most often looking at the same guys on the field in the summer that they had out in the spring.
“At Woodbridge, we’ve been lucky. Everyone plays,” the coach said.
Admittedly, however, it’s hard to take summer victories with too much excitement.
“It’s summer ball — that’s what it is,” Urbano said.
Even so, ending up atop the standings at the end of the summer makes for a season to hold onto. That season for Urbano and the Barrons was 2013. The baseball championship the team captured that summer was the first earned at Woodbridge.
The Barrons have outscored their first six opponents, 40-20. They have defeated Piscataway Township High School, Sayreville War Memorial High School, J.P. Stevens High School, Old Bridge High School, North Brunswick Township High School and Spotswood High School. J.P. Stevens was the first team Woodbridge eliminated from the NJSIAA North Jersey, Section II, Group IV tournament.
So many teams have one or two particular opponents it longs to beat, no matter the season. The team Urbano has narrowed in on the last few years is the one from South Plainfield High School.
“South Plainfield is our nemesis,” he said prior to facing the Tigers two days in a row, Apr. 18 and 19.
Woodbridge won the first game, 4-3, but the Tigers ran away with the second, 10-0. Sure enough, South Plainfield is in the same division as the Barrons in the summer league, so a matchup of the teams is inevitable.
For now, Woodbridge will just take it one game at a time. Next on the team’s schedule is East Brunswick High School July 7 at 5:45 p.m. in Woodbridge. The Bears enter the game reeling. After winning their first three by a combined score of 44-9, Edison High School and Metuchen High School beat them by a total score of 16-8.
