Toms River South Named Week 9 Joe Leone’s Baseball Team of the Week | Shore Sports Insider
Week 9 Joe Leone’s Team of the Week:
Toms River South Baseball
Shore Sports Insider is proud to partner with Joe Leone’s this spring to present our weekly Joe Leone’s Baseball Team of the Week Award, recognizing standout Shore Conference programs for their accomplishments on the field.
We are also thrilled to welcome Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties as our title sponsor, providing a generous $250 gift card each week to celebrate the winning team.
The Week 9 recipient of the 2026 Joe Leone’s Baseball Team of the Week is Toms River South after the Indians made the trip to Clearview and returned home with an upset of the Pioneers in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III quarterfinals for the second straight season. Toms River South is now one win shy of reaching the South Group III championship game as a No. 9 seed one year after making it as a No. 5 seed in Jim Rankin’s first year as head coach.
“This group is just so resilient,” Rankin said. “They are tough, they’ve got heart, they never quit. They make mistakes, just like every other high school baseball team, but they respond very, very well”
In the last two years under Rankin, Toms River South is 5-1 in NJSIAA Tournament games and four of the five runs are by one run. The latest nail-biter was Friday’s showdown with Clearview, which entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed in the section and the No. 5 team in the state, according to NJ.com. The Indians held three different one-run leads in the game and the third time proved to be the charm, with Toms River South taking the lead on a ground ball in the top of the ninth inning by freshman Andrew Schmidt, who then closed out the 4-3 win on the mound.
“He is so cool and calm in these moments and it’s easy to forget he is a freshman,” Rankin said of Schmidt. “He is mature beyond his years. He is obviously talented and the talent speaks for itself. To me, it’s those moments like Friday, when he’s got the ball on the mound, in those pressure spots, with a one-run lead in the ninth against the fifth-ranked team in the state, and he’s just stoic, making pitches.”
Schmidt’s ground ball in the ninth inning led to the error that allowed pinch-runner Jake Gallagher to score the go-ahead run and pitched 3 1/3 innings of relief to earn the win on the mound. Sophomore Stan Citkowicz worked the first two innings and junior starting shortstop Christian Mascaro ate up the next 3 2/3, during which Clearview scored all of its runs.
Toms River South senior Canaan Sanzone. (Photo: Patrick Olivero)
Senior centerfielder Canaan Sanzone drove in the first Toms River South run with a game-tying RBI single in the top of the fourth inning and made a game-saving defensive play in the bottom of the ninth, when Sanzone threw out the potential tying run at the plate on a single to centerfield. Sanzone unleashed a throw in the air to catcher Logan Sowa, who applied the tag on Ean Marcussen several feet from home plate.
Schmidt’s brother, senior Evan Schmidt, went 2-for-4 with two of the runs scored for Toms River South and senior Brett Ranking notched the only other hit for the Indians, who finished with four for the game. Clearview collected 11 hits, but could only push single runs across in the third, fifth and sixth innings.
“I like to think, deeper in the game, we were comfortable being in that spot,” Rankin said. “Credit to Clearview – every single inning, they had traffic. In the seventh and eighth, they had the winning run at second with one out. In the ninth, they had the tying run at second with no outs. We just kept making pitches and kept responding.”
Friday’s win was Toms River South’s second sectional quarterfinal win at Clearview in as many years, with the Indians winning, 2-1, over the Pioneers last year on the way to their first sectional final appearance since 2003. It was the second of three straight victories by a margin of one run and the streak finally ended with a 5-2 loss to Toms River East in the South Jersey Group III championship.
“Coach has been talking about it all year: it wasn’t a fluke last year and we have almost everybody back,” senior leftfielder Jaden Geremia said. “We have been working all winter long, all summer long, waiting for this moment to come back.
“We beat (Clearview) last year and we went into that game feeling good. We almost looked at it like a home game. We took over last year, it felt great and we wanted to do it again. We’re always going to be gritty and find ways to win.”
Toms River South senior Jaden Geremia. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspsportsimages.com)
In the first round of this year’s tournament, Toms River South finally won a lopsided state tournament game when the Indians hammered eight-seeded Highland Regional, 10-2. Geremia posted a monster game at the plate by going 4-for-4 with three doubles, two stolen bases and four RBI, which he drove in with two two-run doubles. Toms River South racked up 15 hits, with Andrew Schmidt, Sowa and senior rightfielder Karsin Migliori each notching two hits. Schmidt also drove in two, while Migliori, Rankin (1-for-3) and Sanzone (1-for-4) each scored two runs.
On the mound, junior left-hander Aiden Moylan overpowered the Tartans with 5 2/3 no-hit innings during which he worked around five walks and struck out seven before hitting the single-game pitch limit of 110. The two runs Highland scored against the Indians ace were unearned and Andrew Schmidt followed up Moylan’s start by recording the final four outs.
Toms River South will make its third road trip of the tournament Wednesday, when the Indians head to fourth-seeded Delsea for the sectional semifinals with Moylan ready to take the ball. On the other side of the bracket, third-seeded Toms River East hosts No. 7 Mainland.
“You have so much confidence when he is on the mound,” Geremia said of Moylan. “With our whole staff, we have a ton of confidence. With Moylan, we know he is going to go out and compete and give us a chance to win.
“We got a lot of experience doing this last year, getting to the sectional final by going on that run and I feel like that experience taught us a lot and prepared us to go even further.”
On Tuesday, Shore Sports Insider visited practice to present Toms River South Head Coach Jim Rankin and the team with a $250 Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties Gift Card, courtesy of our partners at Joe Leone’s, for a well-earned team meal.
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