Baseball Shore Conference Tournament Pitching Preview: Semifinals

Shore Conference Tournament Semifinals

Monday, May 19, 2025

No. 4 Brick Memorial at No. 1 Christian Brothers Academy, 4 p.m.

No. 7 Jackson Memorial at No. 3 Red Bank Catholic, 4 p.m.

With two committed Division I juniors and an uncommitted junior who was a First Team All-Shore selection as a sophomore in 2024 leading the way, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team has a collection of pitchers that no other team in the Shore Conference can boast.

The trio that leads the Brick Memorial rotation has not been far off this year and the numbers suggest the Mustangs’ top three starters stack up rather well against a CBA rotation that is still in the running to win every championship on the table for a Shore Conference team.

One of those potential championships is the Shore Conference Tournament title and for CBA to win it, the Colts will have to beat a confident, determined Brick Memorial squad that has already tested itself against CBA this season and came painfully close to winning the Ocean County Tournament championship.

CBA’s junior trio of University Virginia commit Sean Loggie, Michigan commit Dylan Iwanyk and 2024 First-Team All-Shore left-hander Danny DiTullio have combined for 64 innings and a 2.30 ERA to go with 107 strikeouts against 31 walks. The trio is also 12-0 on the mound.

Brick Memorial’s top three of junior Brody Moore, senior Brayden Nalducci and sophomore Zach Pirnik have combined on 104 innings, during which they have combined for a 1.82 ERA with 141 strikeouts and 48 walks.

“I never thought those three guys would do as much as they have for us this year,” Brick Memorial coach Eva Rizzitello said. “I knew we had a lot of good arms and I thought our pitching would be pretty good, with those guys being a part of it, but they have all gone above and beyond.”

If the pitching staffs are a strength of each team heading into Monday’s Shore Conference Tournament semifinal showdown between the No. 4 seed Mustangs and the top-seeded Colts at the Academy in Lincroft, there are some key differences that swing the advantage to CBA. For one thing, the Colts do not have an ineligible pitcher on the roster, with Loggie allowed to throw up to 70 pitches after throwing 80 in Thursday’s 6-3 win over Ocean and the rest of the staff eligible to throw the maximum of 110.

Brick Memorial, meanwhile, will not have Moore after the junior left-hander tossed 90 pitches in his 5-0 win over Colts Neck on Saturday, with Nalducci covering the final four outs on 24 pitches. Nalducci and Pirnik faced CBA in a 9-4 Colts win on March 29, with Nalducci limiting CBA to one run over four innings before the Colts got to Pirnik in the fifth.

“When we played them, we walked a lot of guys, so we need to limit the walks,” Moore said. “Limit the errors. Get ahead in the count. That’s what we’re looking to do. We know our offense can do the job.”

Nalducci walked four in four innings vs. CBA, but also struck out six, allowed only two hits and allowed just one run to score.

“It definitely gave us confidence, knowing we were beating them,” Nalducci said. “We weren’t able to finish strong but I know for me, I felt like my stuff plays against their lineup and as long as I go after them, I can have success. We just gotta make sure we don’t give up that big inning.”

“Nalducci’s stuff is electric,” Rizzitello said. “He can stress you out, he puts runners on base, he throws a lot of pitches, but he’s got great, great stuff.”

Moore was dealing in Saturday’s win over Colts Neck – he allowed two hits and two walks while striking out nine in 5 2/3 innings – but Rizzitello saw an opportunity to preserve Moore’s eligibility for a potential SCT championship game on Wednesday. The 90 pitches Moore threw are the maximum allowed a pitcher can throw and still pitch with three days of rest, per NJSIAA pitch count rules.

“He has worked really hard in the offseason,” Rizzitello said of Moore. “He got a lot bigger, a lot stronger. He has really come into his own and he has really added to our top-end guys. He didn’t pitch a whole lot last year but he has been great every time we give him the ball.”

The other advantage CBA’s staff has is its “bullpen.” The reason Brick Memorial’s trio has pitched 40 more innings than CBA’s group is because CBA has been quick to lean on its senior duo of Shane Langan and Jack Dufficy to pitch important innings, as well as junior left-hander Dan Pardini. Langan struck out seven of the nine batters he faced in earning the three-inning save vs. Ocean on Thursday and will be fully available on Monday Dufficy, meanwhile, earned the win in relief on March 31 vs. Brick Memorial and is third on the team with 20 2/3 innings.

“We have a luxury with Langan,” CBA coach Marty Kenney Jr. said. “None of our starters ask out of the game. DiTullio has pitched deep pretty consistently and Loggie has really carried his stuff deep into games his last few starts, but when you have a guy like Langan, you don’t want to leave that in your back pocket.”

No team in the Shore Conference can equal CBA at Nos. 4 through 6 on the pitching depth chart, but Brick Memorial is capable beyond its top three. Only three other pitchers have seen the mound and both Will Montanye (3.00) and James Martin (1.27) have posted an ERA of 3.00 or better while throwing between 11 and 12 innings.

“Every game we play, we have confidence in every kid that steps on the mound,” Moore said. “It makes it easier to hit, too. We are already a good hitting team, but it gives us even more confidence knowing that if we just put up a couple runs, we’ll probably win.”

Another reason CBA’s starter innings are so far behind that of Brick Memorial’s is that Iwanyk did not pitch in game action until April 19 and did not start a game until April 27 due to a hamstring strain. Since returning to the mound, however, Iwanyk has been nearly untouchable, allowing two runs – one earned – on four hits in 20 innings. No pitcher on CBA’s team had pitched more than six innings in a single outing before Iwanyk pitched a seven-inning complete game in a win over Manalapan on May 6. He then did it again, pitching a one-hit shutout vs. Toms River South in the first round of the SCT.

“I’ve just been trying to focus on executing my pitches and getting as many outs as possible on as few pitches as possible,” Iwanyk said. “But my hamstring has felt great. I’ve been able to throw all my pitches. My slider is really working. My sinker wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be in the Manalapan game, so I really worked on it and it was a lot better (vs. Toms River South). It worked really well with the slider, being able to tunnel them off of each other.”

“We were fortunate that while he was dealing with the hamstring, he was still able to throw, so we never felt like there had to be a slow build-up,” Kenney said. “He’s felt strong, he’s looked strong, so we’ve let him go. His arm has always been built to go, so it wasn’t something we were worried about.”

Iwanyk is available to throw 110 pitches on Monday should he be Kenney’s choice to start, but Kenney will have other factors to consider. CBA is also scheduled to play Red Bank Catholic Tuesday in the Monmouth County Tournament championship, which means the Colts may be faced with playing three tournament games in three days. DiTullio, meanwhile, has not pitched since May 7 and Dufficy May 8, so there could be a rest-vs.-rust question when either of their numbers are called.

Both pitching staffs will have to contend with lineups that have been in the running for the Shore’s best over the course of the season, although both have cooled off in recent weeks as the competition has ramped up and the weather has made for an inconsistent schedule. Both teams boast a standout offensive catcher, with CBA’s Dan Tsimbinos and Brick Memorial’s Joe McGlynn each putting up huge seasons at the plate that stack up with just about any other backstop in the Shore Conference. Tsimbinos is hitting .518 with 11 doubles, a homer and 28 RBI, while McGlynn enters Monday hitting .537 with six doubles and 19 RBI.

Advantage: CBA

No. 7 Jackson Memorial at No. 3 Red Bank Catholic

The pitching predicaments for each team in this semifinal mirror the teams of the other semifinal – at least as it pertains to Monday’s game. Jackson Memorial will not have access to left-hander Matt Colaneri’s big-game arsenal after the junior threw over 100 pitches in a complete-game victory over Toms River East on Saturday – a pitch total that keeps him ineligible until Thursday. That means senior Danny Hutchinson is the favorite to get the ball at Count Basie Park in Red Bank, with sophomore Brandon Wilson and junior Chase Kanarkowski backing him up. Wilson and Kanarkowski pitched against RBC in Jackson Memorial’s 7-1 loss to the Caseys in Red Bank on April 5, with Wilson giving up seven runs in two inning thanks to five Jaguars errors before Kanarkowski held RBC hitless in four innings. Factor in Hutchinson – who has seen his share of big games at Jackson Memorial over the last three seasons – and Jackson Memorial has enough to stay in the game, even without Colaneri.

The real intrigue on the mound is coming out of the other dugout. Red Bank Catholic has all of its pitchers eligible after Luke Meyers threw 87 pitches in Thursday’s 12-2 win over Ranney. Virginia commit Ryan Prior would be on six days of rest if he is the choice to start on Monday, but like CBA, RBC is scheduled to play in the Monmouth County Tournament final on Tuesday and could be faced with three games in three days. With the Caseys juggling two tournaments, junior Glen Popes and freshman Sam French will be key pitchers for RBC over the next several days and coach Buddy Hausmann could elect to start one of them vs. Jackson Memorial while reserving Prior for one of the championship games. French also pitched four shutout innings in the April 5 win by RBC vs. Jackson Memorial while earning his first varsity win.

Both of these lineups are loaded with players who have delivered in clutch moments over the last two seasons, and RBC’s group is just rounding into form after dealing with injuries throughout the season. Sophomore Luke Lonczak missed the first three weeks while finishing off his rehabilitation for a torn ACL and catcher Aiden Funk missed three weeks with a broken bone in his hand. Lonczak is hitting .333 with a .576 slugging percentage since returning, while Funk is hitting .484 and is coming off a huge game vs. Ranney, in which he went 2-for-2 with a double, triple and four RBI – his first RBI since returning to the lineup on May 9.

Jackson Memorial has a starting core of shortstop Jack Osmond, catcher Tyler Huzzy, third baseman Brady Wendell and second baseman Dane Jorgensen that started on last year’s NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV championship team. The Jaguars came up one game short of winning a share of the Class A South division championship and were bounced by Southern in the first round of the Ocean County Tournament, but showed they still have the stomach for pressure situations on Saturday, when they won at Toms River East for a second time this season. Sophomore Charlie Buchinsky, junior Frank Noviello, senior Aidan Alu and freshman Mike Fogarty have all come up with key at-bats during this current SCT run to complement the returning championship core.

Advantage: Red Bank Catholic