#image_title

Patriots Day: Freehold Twp. Shocks No. 1 RBC in Shore Conference Tournament Classic

Matt Manley|May 17, 2026|Last Updated May 17, 2026

RED BANK — The Freehold Township baseball team entered Saturday averaging 4.4 runs per game and by the end of their first turn at bat at Count Basie Park against Red Bank Catholic — the No. 1 seed in the Shore Conference Tournament — the Patriots already exceeded that average.

Two-and-a-half innings later, their five-run lead was gone. Freehold Township nearly doubled its per-game scoring average in just three innings and it wasn’t enough to beat the Caseys. It would take more than one inning, three innings, even seven innings to beat the Shore’s No. 1 team and the Patriots had to do it with their best weapon watching the game, hoping to get a chance to make one more start on the mound in the SCT.

On Saturday, with five different pitchers taking the mound — none of them Seton-Hall-University-bound ace Jackson Redmond — Freehold Township proved through several blown leads, command issues on the mound, outs made on the bases that the Patriots were ready to do whatever it takes to pull off the upset of the year in the Shore Conference.

After allowing Red Bank Catholic to take its first lead in the bottom of the sixth, 17th-seeded Freehold Township bounced back to tie the game in the top of the seventh and won it with three in the top of the eighth to score a wild, 13-10 victory over the Caseys to eliminate the Shore Conference Tournament’s top seed and secure a spot in Monday’s quarterfinal round.

“We knew it was not going to be easy,” said senior Nick Schicchi, who went 3-for-4 with a double, home run and three RBI while catching eight innings. “We’re coming into RBC, the number one team in the Shore, top ten in the state. We knew they were going to hit, but we just kept going.”

Freehold Township earned a shot at RBC thanks to senior ace Jackson Redmond, who pitched a four-hit shutout in a 3-0 win at Southern Regional on Wednesday. With 73 pitches thrown in that first-round win, Redmond was just three pitches above the number that would have allowed him per NJSIAA rule to pitch on Saturday, which Patriots coach Todd Smith said Redmond begged him to be able to do while mapping out Wednesday’s game plan. Instead, Redmond went the distance on Wednesday, watched his teammates play a relentless game on Saturday in which they would not be denied, and now will prepare to take the mound at No. 8 seed Toms River East on Monday night.

“We feel great,” Schicchi said about moving forward in the tournament. “We’ve got the best pitcher in the Shore.”

Schicchi had an easy time catching his classmate on Wednesday, which was the fifth straight seven-inning complete game by Redmond — a streak during which he has not walked a batter. On Saturday, however, Schicchi had to guide five different pitchers through eight innings against a deep, dangerous Red Bank Catholic lineup. On top of that, he continued to come up to bat in key situations and, as much as any player on Freehold Township Saturday afternoon into the early evening, he delivered in the biggest moments.

“I’m a senior. I only have a handful of games left,” said Schicchi, who was one of only two seniors to take an at-bat or throw a pitch for Freehold Township on Saturday. “This is probably the best game I have ever been a part of in my life. We had a great practice yesterday coming off a (regular-season) loss to Point Boro. We came ready to play. Nobody thought we were going to be here but we were confident.”

“He is one of the toughest kids I have coached in the three sports I coach,” said Smith, who is also an assistant football coach and the head varsity boys basketball coach at Freehold Township. “He is all heart and guts. He gives everything he has. He missed his senior year of football due to an injury and he is going to play football at Kean (University). He’s a three-year varsity catcher and he has improved every year. He just does it with toughness and guts. Everything he does is one hundred percent. I love the kid.”

After Red Bank Catholic had cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-4 in the bottom of the second, Schicchi halted the run by belting a two-run home run to leftfield to bump the Patriots’ lead to 7-4. The homer was the second of the game for Freehold Township, which took a 2-0 lead on a two-run shot by junior Nick Stabile. In the top of the seventh inning, with Freehold Township down, 10-9, Schicchi led off with a ground-rule double to left-centerfield to start what became the game-tying rally.

In the top of the eighth, the Patriots third-year starter at catcher came to bat with the bases loaded and one out and scalded a single through the left side to score the go-ahead run, giving Freehold Township an 11-10 lead. The Patriots went on to add two more runs in the inning on a wild pitch and later a sacrifice fly by junior George Burdge.

After Red Bank Catholic knocked starter Cameron Chiapuzio from the game on a three-run home run by senior first baseman Tyler Hager with two out in the bottom of the first inning, sophomore Ryan Van Kleef took the ball and pitched to end of the fourth inning, during which he allowed five runs. The bulk proved to be valuable for Freehold Township, who got a scoreless fifth inning from junior right-hander Dylan Ford after Red Bank Catholic junior Anthony Scaglione pitched a scoreless top of the fifth. The fifth inning was the lone inning in which neither team scored a run.

Freehold Township went back to work at the plate in the top of the sixth and took the lead thanks to doubles by both junior Erol Ramiz and sophomore Kobe Dancel, with Ramiz scoring on Dancel’s shot to the fence in left.

The Patriots ran into more pitching struggles in the bottom of the sixth, when junior left-hander Julian Polo took over and walked the bases loaded with one out. Following ball one to senior Jake Frankel, Smith subbed sophomore right-hander Bradley Santoro on the mound and he threw threw straight balls to walk in the tying run. Santoro got the second out by snaring a chopper back to the mound and throwing home to prevent a run from scoring, but a wild pitch two pitches later plated the go-ahead run anyway. After one more walk, Santoro worked his way out of the inning with RBC now in front, 10-9.

“He went down to warm-up three times and I didn’t want to send him down for a fourth time, so at that point, I just put him right in the game,” Smith said. “I told the guys before the game we were literally going to try to break the game down one inning at a time to give us a chance. So he (Santoro) was ready in the third, the fourth and the fifth and in the sixth, it was just like, ‘Okay, let’s see what happens.’ He did an amazing job. Even though they took the lead, he didn’t let it get out of control. Then in the seventh and eighth, he was phenomenal.”

Schicchi’s double to lead off the top of the seventh set up Freehold Township with a scoring opportunity but RBC wiped it away when senior pitcher Glen Popes fielded a bunt by Burdge and threw to third base, where senior Landon Laido dropped the tag on Schicchi for the first out of the inning. Popes and Hager thought they had Burdge picked off and after the near second out on the bases, Burdge stole second to put a the tying run back in scoring position. Stabile grounded out to the right side to push Burdge to third base, setting up junior Skylar Garcia for a game-tying infield single that went off the glove of a lunging Hager and kicked far enough away from him to allow Garcia to reach with an RBI single while Burdge crossed the plate with Freehold Township’s 10th run.

Santoro worked around a two-out walk to RBC catcher Aiden Funk to pitch a scoreless bottom of the seventh, which cleared the way for the winning three-run rally in the top of the eighth. Junior Aiden Rivera and Dancel started the winning rally with a hit-by-pitch and single to center, respectively, and junior Ed Gudaitis loaded the bases by drawing a walk — all with one out.

Santoro induced a pair of pop flies to open the bottom of the eighth and ended his first varsity win with a strikeout.

“He’s got a high ceiling,” Smith said of Santoro. “Hopefully, today propels him to where we think he can go. He gained a lot of confidence today.”

Stabile jump-started Freehold Township with a two-run home run in the top of the first and the Patriots poured on three more runs in the inning. Gudaitis hit a two-out, two-run single into rightfield and Burdge — the 10th batter of the inning — drew a bases-loaded walk to plate the fifth run of the rally.

RBC got back in the game on one swing, with Hager drilling a three-run home run to leftfield to make it 5-3. The Caseys inched closer in the bottom of the second with back-to-back doubles by Brayden Harmatta and Lonczak to make it 5-4.

Following Schicchi’s homer and Stabile’s double in the top of the third, RBC came right back with three in the bottom of the inning thanks to consecutive run-scoring hits by Jake Frankel, Miles Nessan and Laido. Frankel smashed an RBI triple, Nessan followed with an RBI single to score Frankel, then scored from first on an RBI double by Laido to pull the Caseys within 8-7. Catcher Aiden Funk started both RBC scoring rallies in the third and fourth innings with a double in each.

With Saturday’s win, Freehold Township is now 11-5 since beginning the season 1-5, which included two losses apiece to Shore Conference Class B North division leaders Rumson-Fair Haven and Colts Neck. Both the first-place Bulldogs and the second-place Cougars also reached the SCT quarterfinals, giving the division three of the eight quarterfinalists — tied with Class A North (Ranney, Christian Brothers Academy and Howell) for the most of any division.

“This team has been through it all,” Schicchi said. “We started 1-5 and just regrouped. I told these boys before the game: ‘We all have it in us.’ Every single one of us knew what we could do. We all put on a performance. This was a team win today. We knew we were not a 1-5 team. We knew we were going to turn it around and once we started winning some games and gaining confidence, we knew it was just a matter of time before we put it all together.”

Freehold Township lost each of Redmond’s first two starts, but is since 5-0 in his last five. In those five starts, Redmond has pitched a full seven innings in all five, allowed three runs — all unearned — across the 35 innings, and posted a staggering 51-to-0 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the five starts. Next up, he will attempt to pitch his team to its first SCT semifinal appearance of Smith’s 16-year tenure as head coach by silencing a Toms River East squad that is a year removed from winning both Ocean County Tournament and NJSIAA South Jersey Group III championships.

Redmond has not pitched with less than five days of rest between starts and his Monday start will be on four days of rest. After Redmond lobbied to pitch on two-days rest against RBC, Smith is not worried about his ace being ready for Monday night.

“With his future, I did not think it was worth it to break up his schedule (pitching once per week) for the regular season,” Smith said. “He has been pushing to make more starts, especially (Saturday). He wanted to pitch this one today and he asked if he could save some pitches against Southern so he’d still be eligible and I didn’t want to do that. I told him if the team could get us to Monday, he was getting the ball. He has earned it. He has worked really hard to get himself ready to pitch these tournament games at the end of the year and we’re at the point in the year where if he’s eligible and he wants it, he’s getting the ball.”

 

Box Score

Freehold Township 13, Red Bank Catholic 10 (8 Innings)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 R H E
Free Twp (12-10) 5 0 3 0 0 1 1 3 13 13 1
RBC (17-5) 3 1 3 1 0 2 0 0 10 9 1

Pitching

Freehold Twp IP H R ER BB SO PC
Cameron Chiapuzio 0.1 1 3 3 2 1 21
Ryan Van Kleef 3.2 7 5 5 1 2 67
Dylan Ford 1 1 0 0 1 2 22
Julian Polo 0.1 0 2 2 3 0 17
Bradley Santoro (W, 1-4) 2.2 0 0 0 3 2 40
Red Bank Catholic IP H R ER BB SO PC
Sam French 0.2 3 5 2 2 0 32
Anthony Scaglione 5 6 4 4 5 7 105
Glen Popes (L, 4-3) 2.1 4 4 4 1 1 39

Top Hitters

Freehold Twp. Game Stats
Nick Schicchi 3-4, 2B, HR, BB, R, 3 RBI
Nick Stabile 2-6, 2B, HR, R, 3 RBI
Kobe Dancel 2-4, 2B, BB, 2 R, RBI
Ed Gudaitis 2-4, BB, 2 R, 2 RBI, SB
George Burdge 1-4, 2 BB, 3 R, 2 RBI, 2 SB
Erol Ramiz 1-5, 2B, R
Skylar Garcia 1-3, 2 BB, R, RBI
Julian Polo 1-4, BB, R
Red Bank Catholic Game Stats
Tyler Hager 1-4, HR, BB, 2 R, 3 RBI
Aiden Funk 2-3, 2 2B, 2 BB
Miles Nessan 2-5, R, RBI
Jake Frankel 1-4, 3B, BB, R, 2 RBI
Landon Laido 1-2, 2 BB, RBI
Brayden Harmata 1-3, BB, R
Luke Lonczak 1-5, 2B, RBI

 

Related Articles