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Bear Essentials: Freshman Evernham Pitches Raritan to Sectional Semifinal

Matt Manley|June 1, 2025|Last Updated June 3, 2025

HAZLET — When he told his freshman pitcher he would be starting his team’s NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II quarterfinal game against Cinnaminson on Friday, Raritan baseball coach Jeff Struble knew Brendan “Bear” Evernham could handle a pressure-packed moment. In his first season of high school, Evernham pitched in 16 of his team’s first 26 games and recorded the save in three of those.

If the cliché that says “the toughest outs in baseball to record are the last three,” Raritan’s freshman right-hander has already shown he can get the toughest outs in a game.

One thing Bear Evernham had not yet proven before Friday: recored all 21 outs in a high school game. With a trip to undefeated No. 1 seed Governor Livingston on the line Friday, Raritan’s freshman did just that.

Evernham pitched a complete-game five-hitter on 115 pitches and the Rockets — seeded No. 5 in the section — held off No. 13 Cinnaminson, 2-1, to reach the sectional semifinal round for the first time since 2021.

“It was a great win,” Evernham said. “The guys behind me did a really good job. Going that far was pretty tough, but I had to stick through it. I just focused on throwing strikes. If they foul it off, they foul it off. Just throw my best pitch every time and if they put in play, I’ve got a great defense behind me.”

Prior to Friday, Evernham’s longest outing of the season was four innings and the most pitches he threw in a single outing was 56. With junior left-hander Will Meehan experiencing elbow discomfort, according to Struble, Raritan needed an alternative plan at starting pitcher Friday after senior Alan Warren went 6 2/3 innings on 113 pitches in Tuesday’s first-round win over Spotswood. Warren (8-1, 1.25 ERA in 56 innings) and Meehan (5-0, 1.23 ERA in 34 innings) have formed Raritan’s one-two punch in the rotation through its resurgent 2025 season in which the Rockets have won the Shore Conference Class C North division championship and reached the 20-win mark — neither of which Raritan has done since 2018.

Evernham, however, has carved out his own key role within the pitching staff as the team’s closer and first-man out of the bullpen. Prior to Friday, he threw 25 2/3 innings in relief over 16 appearances with three saves and a 1.91 ERA. In those 25 2/3 innings, Evernham allowed 21 hits and just six walks while striking out 16.

“Knowing him as well as I do, this is the guy I want out there on the mound,” said senior shortstop and older brother Travis Evernham, who also started as a freshman as a shortstop. “I had my full trust in him. I knew he was going to go out and do his thing. I had my guys behind him and we had to play great defense for him. If we were able to do our jobs, we knew he would be just fine.”

“He is a pit bull,” Struble said. “It’s a credit to his brother, Travis. It’s a baseball family, they love baseball and he has been under his brother’s wing forever. His brother has been talking to Bear since he was a freshman about what it’s like to play here. He was a guy who was excited to come here and do his job and he’s eating it up right now.”

With Friday’s performance, Bear Evernham can add playoff starter to his résumé. He worked around a throwing error and the first of his two walks of the outing to pitch a scoreless first inning, then his offense gave him an early lead by scoring on a passed ball in the bottom of the first inning. Junior third baseman Antonio Lamberti walked and senior rightfielder Jobby Dekis followed with a single before both runners moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt by senior catcher Matt Melendez. Cinnaminson starter Charlie Kind got strikeout for out No. 2 and escaped the inning with just one unearned allowed.

Raritan answered right back in the bottom of the inning, with Dekis and Will Meehan setting the table with a pair of singles and each advancing a base on a wild pitch. With two out, first baseman Jake Ricchuiti hit a one-hopper to shortstop, where the ball took an unusual hop one Pirates shortstop Noah Harvey. Harvey stopped the ball from going into the outfield to score both runs, but Ricchuiti made it to first base with an RBI single before being helped off the field with a leg injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the game.

The top three hitters in Cinnaminson’s lineup went a combined 5-for-11 with a double, walk and a run scored against Evernham, but he held the rest of the Pirates to a combined 0-for-15 with a walk, sacrifice fly and two hit batters. Cinnaminson stranded two runners each in the first, fifth and seventh innings.

In the seventh, Harvey hit a one-out single and after Evernham recorded the second out on a fielder’s choice ground ball to second base, Logan Hammell ripped a single through the left side to move the tying run into scoring position. That brought up the clean-up hitter, Alessandroni, who fell behind, 1-2, but worked the count full by fouling off two two-strike pitches.

“Just try not to leave anything down the middle,” Bear Evernham said of his thought process during the game’s final batter. “Work my spots. They got the two hits before him, so I just kept my composure because I was not walking out of this game. I just tried to stay on the corners. He kept fouling them off, I kept pumping them in there, hitting my spots.”

With the runners in motion on the 3-2 pitch, Evernham got Alessandroni to line a changeup to third, where Lamberti caught it just above the ground for the final out of the game.

“I threw my best pitch at the end: the changeup,” Bear said. “He hit it hard, but we got the line-out. You don’t want to walk him there so I put the changeup in the zone. All game, they have hit it hard, but I can’t put him on there and now we have a real jam and I’m coming out of the game because I’m at my pitch limit. Just have to trust the defense and I trust my guys.”

Now in his 12th season at the helm, Struble will be leading his team into a sectional semifinal game for the third time — the first with this group of seniors. Raritan lost to Voorhees in the 2021 Central Jersey Group II championship game in 2021 and the following season, the current group of seniors entered the program and have been working to get back to that level for nearly four full years.

“It’s a senior-heavy team that very quietly goes about their job and that’s kind of how we like it here,” Struble said. “Not a lot of people know we’re coming, but you look up and here we are. It’s a vert modest group, but they work hard and they play for each other. They are one of the best practicing teams that I have coached — from the defensive focus, to the offensive side. They work so hard and they want it so bad. That’s why in tight spots, they don’t shy away. They practice extremely hard for those situations.”

Until this current season, those efforts had not produced more than one state tournament appearance in 2023, which ended in a first-round loss that capped a 14-11 season. For Bear Evernham, the chance to step onto the varsity team and help his brother’s graduating class reach a sectional final four was more of a motivation than the prospect of establishing himself.

“The older guys have been playing with each other since they were about five years old, so I think to myself, ‘I can’t be the reason this ends now,'” Bear Evernham said. “I’ve got to keep these guys together.”

“This group is a family,” Travis Evernham said. “I look at all these guys as my brothers. We have a very, very close connection. I know not a lot of people had us going this far in these playoffs, but we have a connection that no other team has. I want to play with these guys for the rest of my life, so we have something different going into every game. It’s a chip on our shoulder.”

During its last run to a sectional final in 2021, Raritan beat Governor Livingston to earn a spot in the championship game. The task will be the same this year, only this time, Governor Livingston is 24-0 and ranked No. 1 in New Jersey, according to NJ Advance Media.

“It’s a fun place to play,” Struble said of Governor Livingston’s home setting. “It’s a great atmosphere, great environment for baseball. I’ve gotten to know (Governor Livingston coach) Chris (Roof) over the years and he has done a great job up there and I think he appreciates the way we play when we play them. It’s just a great opportunity and for our guys, just enjoy the ride. Appreciate where we’re at and anything can happen when we get there.”

While the overall body of work makes for an intimidating scouting report, Governor Livingston has appeared vulnerable in each of its first two NJSIAA Tournament wins. The Highlanders had to rally from a 5-1 deficit in the bottom of the fifth to beat No. 16 seed Point Pleasant Boro on a walk-off hit and in the sectional quarterfinal against No. 9 South River, the game was tied heading into the bottom of the fifth before Governor Livingston pulled away for a 12-6 win.

“Our backs have been against the wall all season,” Travis Evernham said. “At this point, we’re going out and having fun. We’ve done it for so long here — I’ve been playing since I was a freshman and every year, it’s just adversity after adversity. Now, we know what it’s like to be there and we’re ready to win at all costs.”

 

Box Score

Raritan 2, Cinnaminson 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Cinnaminson (14-11) 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 5 0
Raritan (20-7) 1 0 1 0 0 0 X 2 9 2

Pitching

Cinnaminson IP H R ER BB SO PC
Charlie Kind (L, 2-4) 6 9 2 1 2 3 109
Raritan IP H R ER BB SO PC
Bear Evernham (W, 2-2) 7 5 1 1 2 4 115

Top Hitters

Cinnaminson Game Stats
Logan Hammell 2-3, BB
Luke Rittler 1-4, 2B, R
Noah Harvey 2-4, SB
Raritan Game Stats
Antonio Lamberti 1-2, 2 BB, R
Jobby Dekis 2-4, R
Jake Ricchuiti 1-2, RBI

 

 

 

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