PRINCETON — The Hamilton West and Princeton Day School varsity baseball clubs are still building toward the type of teams they want to be in 2025.
That may sound a little strange six or seven games into the spring season, but the Hornets and Panthers, like so many squads in the area, have yet to hit their stride in this, just the second week of April.
As the season continues and the weather warms up, so will Hamilton and PDS in the Colonial Valley Conference’s reshaped Valley Division.
Thursday, with the weather still quite cold and dreary, they continued that quest with the winless Panthers taking the lead on the Hornets in the third inning, then getting back in striking distance even after Hamilton High West scored eight times in the top of the fourth to pave its way to an 11-8 victory.
“This was about picking up my teammates,” the Hornets’ 6-foot-2 junior catcher and cleanup hitter A.J. Zuccarello said. “I was fired up because of the dropped third strike that made (junior starting pitcher) Joaquin (Gutierrez) throw 20 extra pitches the inning before. I wanted to make up for that, so I was happy to drive the ball. This gets us back into the win column and gives us confidence.”
Zuccarello provided the third big hit of the top of the fourth inning for head coach Gerry Gomez’ 3-4 squad. His RBI double followed a one-out, run-scoring single from freshman Luke Radoslovich, then a two-out RBI double by junior Tyrone Crupi.
After forging a 4-3 lead on senior Dylan Powers’ two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the third, the Panthers fell apart defensively the following inning, committing three of their five errors in the game, which made all of Hamilton’s runs unearned.
In fact, there were not any earned runs scored until PDS came back to score four times in the bottom of the fourth behind two-run doubles from freshmen A.J. Doran and Gavin Ross. Doran and Ross are two of the six freshmen on head coach Eric Schnepf’s 0-7 club, including starting pitcher Cameron Kelemen, who worked 3⅔ innings.
“We still seem to have one or two innings that kill us, and we have a couple of untimely errors here and there,” said Doran, who drove in three runs on the day. “But I think we’re on a good track. We’re confident that we’re going to get a win soon.”
Both teams’ steadfastness that they are getting better was clear to see, and they showed that over the last three innings with shutdown baseball. The Panthers got three solid innings from sophomore reliever Keegan Fullman. The Hornets saw sophomore Daniel Tozzi take over in relief of Vergara and earn a hold with two hitless and scoreless frames before senior Triston Bonilla closed the door in the bottom of the seventh to earn the save.
“I wouldn’t even say we’re young. We’re definitely experienced. Just about everybody on the roster has gotten varsity time,” said Zuccarello, who had two hits on the day, including an RBI single in the third inning that gave the visitors a 3-0 jump. “We want to take out our frustrations and eliminate anything that’s annoying us. We’re trying to use those things to our advantage.”
For both Hamilton West and Princeton Day School, that’s just part of the growth process they hope will lead them to where they want to be by the end of the 2025 campaign.
HamiltonW(3-4) 201 800 0 — 11 6 1
PDS (0-7) 004 400 0 — 8 7 5
2B: Crupi, Zuccarello (HW), Doran, Ross (PDS); RBIs: Segura, Crupi, Zuccarello 2, Tozzi, Lesperance, Radoslovich 2 (HW), Doran 3, Ross 2, Morris, Powers 2 (PDS).
WP — Vergara (1-0); LP — Kelemen (0-2); S — Bonilla (1).
