2025 SSI Baseball Coach of the Year: Evan Rizzitello, Brick Memorial

Prior to the 2025 season, heartbreak was part of the Brick Memorial baseball experience and the past four years are peppered with examples.

From an early point of this spring, however, Evan Rizzitello sensed something was different about this year’s team.

The 16-year head coach of the Mustangs has had to console his players through nine straight first-round losses in the NJSIAA Tournament from 2014 to 2024 and while Brick Memorial has come close to championships in both the Shore Conference Class A South division race and the Ocean County Tournament, both of those pursuits had fallen just short.

Like Brick Memorial teams before them, the 2025 Mustangs showcased their talent throughout the season and when the games mattered most, the distinguished themselves from their predecessors, as well as the rest of this year’s Shore Conference.

On top of that, they proved their coach right.

Over the past two-and-a-half months, Brick Memorial stormed to a Class A South championship, won its first ever Shore Conference Tournament title, finished runner-up in both the Ocean County Tournament and NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III, and closed out 2025 as the No. 1 team at the Shore in two local rankings – including Shore Sports Insider.

Rizzitello’s vision for this year’s team and his day-to-day work along with his coaching staff in guiding the Mustangs to the most decorated season in their program’s history earns the veteran skipper the 2025 Shore Sports Insider Baseball Coach of the Year Award.

“I’m so happy for them because I feel like the last several years, we have never gotten over the hump,” Rizzitello said after his team won the Shore Conference Tournament championship. “We had all of the talent, all the potential and we just never got over and it all clicked this year.”

Early in Rizzitello’s tenure, he guided the Mustangs within a win of their first ever NJSIAA sectional title in 2013. One year earlier, Brick Memorial reached the Ocean County Tournament final, which the Mustangs lost to Jackson Memorial – the team they would defeat in the 2013 Central Jersey Group IV semifinal a year later.

After that loss to Hunterdon Central in the 2013 Central Group IV final, Brick Memorial lost nine consecutive games in the first round of the NJSIAA Tournament, including three straight at home vs. a double-digit seed heading into this season. Two of those losses were to No. 15 seeds when the Mustangs were seeded No. 2.

Even through the state tournament drought, Brick Memorial brushed up against championships in the 10 seasons between state playoff wins. The Mustangs reached the 2021 OCT championship game and lost an epic, 13-inning classic to Central Regional. In 2023, Brick Memorial won a share of the Class A South championship with Jackson Memorial and Southern Regional, falling one win shy of the program’s first outright division title since 1996.

This season, thanks to a team that embraced the challenge of getting Brick Memorial over the hump and a coaching staff that empowered them to do it, the Mustangs finished off the most accomplished season of any team in the Shore Conference this year. Brick Memorial tied Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) for the most wins in the Shore Conference (22) and tying CBA and Toms River East in 2025 championships with two. Brick Memorial won the outright Class A South championship for the first time ever (its 1996 division title came in Class B South) and the Shore Conference Tournament title for the first time ever.

What made Brick Memorial stand out above even CBA and the Toms River East team that beat the Mustangs in the 2025 OCT final was that Brick Memorial made it to two other championship games and lost competitive battles to quality opponents. The Mustangs dropped the OCT final to Toms River East, 3-1, and fell to a 28-2 Northern Burlington squad, 8-4, in the Central Group III championship game. Toms River East lost to Northern Burlington, 11-0, in the Group III semifinal after ending its 19-year sectional-title drought.

On top of the fourth championship games in which Brick Memorial participated, the Mustangs also clinched the Class A South championship in their final divisional game in a winner-take-all showdown vs. Jackson Memorial. The Jaguars threw junior ace Matt Colaneri and Brick Memorial handled the left-hander in an 8-2 victory that officially wrapped up the division title.

Final: Brick Memorial 8, Jackson Memorial 2. Brick Mem wins its first ever outright Class A South championship and first outright division title of any kind in 30 years. pic.twitter.com/979v8mt0ml

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) April 25, 2025

After losing the OCT final to Toms River East on May 6, Brick Memorial bounced back by riding strong pitching to wins over Monmouth Regional and Class B North champion Colts Neck in the first two rounds of the Shore Conference Tournament. That set up a showdown vs. top-seeded CBA on the road.

Facing 2024 First-Team All-Shore left-hand pitcher Danny DiTullio, Brick Memorial took the lead with two runs in the top if the second inning, then road sophomore Zach Pirnik all the way to the seventh inning, at which point senior Brayden Nalducci closed out the 2-1 victory by pitching a one-two-three final inning.

Rizzitello’s pitching plan down the stretch was critical in Brick Memorial’s success. Pirnik was the losing pitcher in the OCT final vs. Toms River East, as well in a 9-4 loss to CBA in the season-opener for both teams on March 29. Despite the checkered recent history, Pirnik got the vote of confidence from his head coach and did not disappoint, allowing one run on six hits and four walks while striking out four in his six innings.

Nalducci’s role in the win was also the result of a strategical adjustment by Rizzitello and his staff. Prior to the Shore Conference Tournament, the senior right-hander made all of his appearances on the mound as a starter, but starting with a 5-0 win over Colts Neck in the SCT quarterfinals, Nalducci finished off the season as Brick Memorial’s relief ace.

In six appearances out of the bullpen – five of which came during during the SCT and NJSIAA Tournaments – Nalducci recorded four saves with a 2.33 ERA, four hits allowed, seven strikeouts and three walks in six innings. He saved wins over CBA, Red Bank Catholic, Old Bridge and Middletown South – three of which reached sectional finals and the other (Middletown South) of which lost to Brick Memorial in a sectional final.

Brick Memorial’s offense was also a force under Rizzitello and it was not limited to just the top of the order. In fact, it was not even limited to the starting nine. The top six batters in Brick Memorial’s order each hit .325 or better and at the start of the Shore Conference Tournament – when the quality of opponents ticked up – all nine starters in Brick Memorial’s lineup owned an average of .300 or better.

The Mustangs also had two key fill-ins bat .300 or better in spot duty. Gavin McCue and Justin Fabbricatore stepped in during a rash of injuries and both delivered at the plate, with the senior Fabbricatore hitting .457 with 12 RBI in 38 plate appearances.

That readiness and willingness to embrace roles revealed a collective team that was all-in on ending Brick Memorial’s championship drought and chasing program history. Rizzitello benefitted from the group that he called “special” but his contribution to the group – along with that of assistant coaches Chris James, James Mahoney, Nick Guiro, Kyle Cline and Skip Hopcroft – enhanced the team’s performance in big games.

Like most seasons around New Jersey, Brick Memorial’s 2025 season ended with loss. This year, however, the disappointment was overshadowed by a deep sense of accomplishment for a Mustangs team that finally won big.

 

Matt Manley’s Coach of the Year Ballot

1. Evan Rizzitello, Brick Memorial

2. Jim Rankin, Toms River South

3. Jeff Struble, Raritan

4. Jeff Karpell, Middletown South

5. Dave Drew, Point Pleasant Boro

6. Keith Smicklo, Toms River East

7. Marty Kenney Jr., Christian Brothers Academy

8. Mike Yorke, Colts Neck

9. Jason Groschel, Brick

10. Chris Arrechi, Holmdel