The Shoe Fits: Pardini, CBA Dominate Shore Conference Final, Claim 9th Title

LAKEWOOD — Dan Pardini is a senior at Christian Brothers Academy, so it was unusual that in the biggest game of his high school baseball career, he was wearing spikes that were a Father’s Day gift.

The blue shoes with ‘Dad’ written within the outline of heart shapes all around the outside of the shoe were a gift from his father, to be worn at the right time. There was just one problem: they were too big.

“I got them for Father’s Day two years ago and they were too big to wear in a game,” Pardini said. “They fit great now, so I had to break them out for tonight.”

On Sunday night at ShoreTown Ballpark, Pardini was big enough to fill those shoes as well as the shoes of a championship pitcher for a CBA team that started the season an injured, inconsistent mess, only to round into its usual championship form.

Pardini pitched a two-hit shutout with one walk, one hit batter and eight strikeouts as CBA — the No. 6 seed in the Shore Conference Tournament — dominated No. 5 Rumson-Fair Haven, 12-0, in six innings to claim the program’s ninth Shore Conference Tournament championship. In addition to adding to its record title count in the SCT, the Colts became the first team in the 46-year history of the tournament to win the championship game via 10-run rule.

“I’m just so thankful to be able to have the chance to compete with these guys,” Pardini said. “I can’t even put it into words. I had some personal things going on last offseason and then the (ankle) injury this year put me down a little bit. Being able to come back from that and stay positive and go out there and compete means a lot.”

Pardini did not issue his walk until the sixth inning and both hits against him were doubles — one by sophomore shortstop Miles Martin to lead off the bottom of the first and the other off the leftfield wall by junior rightfielder Casper Billington. Billington homered in each of Rumson’s three tournament wins and was a matter of feet from making it four home runs in four games.

“I’m not tying to make excuses but coming back from my ankle injury, I had never done anything like that before so I had to get used to it,” said Pardini, who had walked 12 in his first 15 innings this season. “It’s just like coming back from an arm injury: the more you throw, the more you get used to it. Coming into the year, my big goal was working on limited the free bases, so that has been frustrating at times, but tonight was good.”

With the shutout, Pardini has yet to allow an earned run in 21 innings this season while improving to 4-0. He missed nearly a month with an ankle injury he sustained in an early-April practice and has since settled into the top of the rotation as one of CBA’s top two starters. The Colts have missed University of Virginia commit Sean Loggie all season due to injury and University of Michigan commit Dylan Iwaynk is currently recovering from a hamstring strain.

Final in 6: CBA 12, Rumson 0. Dan Pardini goes all 6 innings, 2 hits, 1 BB, 8 K. pic.twitter.com/7pI9Vz0MZD

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) May 25, 2026

“It’s tragic what’s happened with those guys,” Pardini said. “We all wish they could be out here competing with us. It pushed me to want to step on the field and win one for them. At the same time, I still believe, no matter who we have pitching, we can compete. We have a bunch of guys on our pitching staff that can be really good in the next few years.”

Pardini finished the SCT with 10 scoreless frames and wins over both Point Pleasant Boro and Rumson-Fair Haven. After scarce varsity use as a sophomore and a solid 13 innings as a junior pitching in the shadow of Iwanyk, DiTullio, Loggie and 2025 graduates Shane Langan and Jack Dufficy, Pardini has overcome the injury that knocked him out for the first month and given CBA exactly what it was missing with the loss of Iwanyk and the season-long absence of Loggie.

“I have been disappointed that Pardini hasn’t been going more for us, even in past seasons,” junior Ryan Wetmore said. “I thought Pardini has always been right there with those top guys on our staff. He carved Ranney up in a big game last year and I thought he was going to be one of our guys, so to see him go out there tonight and succeed like that is awesome. I love to see all my guys succeed but Pardini has been doing it for three years and hasn’t gotten the recognition he deserves. To see him do what he did tonight was awesome for him.”

While Pardini carved through Rumson’s lineup over six innings, CBA’s offense peppered Rumson with 11 hits and took advantage of eight Rumson errors. Senior centerfielder Jayden Matejicka continued his May hot streak by going 3-for-3 with a double, walk, hit-by-pitch, two runs scored an RBI and a stolen base at the top of the batting order. Since April 29, Matejicka is 20-for-32 (.625) at the plate, raising his average from .100 to over .400.

Rumson kept Matejicka and CBA off the board in the top of the first inning with a hustle play from senior catcher Luke Gallagher, who raced after a ball that got away, flipped it to junior starting pitcher Cooper Jones, who slapped the tag on Matejicka attempting to score on the passed ball. The ball popped out of Jones’s glove, but he was ruled to have held onto it long enough to record the out. Matejicka had led off the game with a double that one-hopped the leftfield wall.

Wetmore drove in three runs during a 2-for-4 game at the plate, including a two-run double in CBA’s six-run fourth inning. Junior rightfielder Alex Fiore singled in each of his first three at-bats and drove in the second CBA run of the second inning after the first scored on the tail-end of a first-and-third double-steal. Junior third baseman Michael Knox stole home on the play for the first of his three stolen bases in the game.

“I know I have been looking forward to this game, in particular,” Wetmore said. “We wanted to show everybody that this is who we are and this is not new to us, but at the same time, not having won this tournament last year, it was big for the seniors. They won it their sophomore year, but they didn’t do it their junior year so for the rest of us, we felt like we have to get this win for them.”

Senior first baseman Jared Matejicka delivered an RBI single in the fourth and Jayden Matejicka knocked in a run with a single in the top of the sixth as part of a three-run frame that helped CBA close out the win.

CBA has now won nine of its last 10 games after starting the season 6-7 and Sunday’s win was its eighth in a row. At one point in late April, the Colts were outside the top 20 in power points among Shore Conference teams when landing in the top 24 was required just to qualify for the Shore Conference Tournament. When the tournament was seeded, CBA was the No. 20 team in the Shore Conference on power points, but drew the No. 6 seed based on its high points during the regular season.

When it was time to perform, the Colts proved the regular season was just a warm-up act.

“We have all these guys who have hit before in big games,” Wetmore said. “We are not new to this. There was a point this year that we just had to get out of our own heads and our own way. We realized we had to play to win every game because nothing is promised to us. At one point in the season, we didn’t even know if we were getting in the Shore Conference Tournament and we were supposed to win it. That was the point we realized, ‘Alright, we’ve got to get it going.’ Nothing is promised to us. Nothing is given to us. We are the best team in the Shore, but we have to show that we are. Everyone wants to beat CBA and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Box Score

CBA 12, Rumson-Fair Haven 0

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
CBA (15-8)	0	3	0	6	0	3	X	12	11	0
Rumson-FH (20-6)	0	0	0	0	0	0	X	0	2	8

Pitching

CBA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	PC
Dan Pardini (W, 4-0)	6	2	0	0	1	8	103

Rumson-Fair Haven	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	PC
Cooper Jones (L, 6-1)	3	6	8	5	5	6	89
Hunter Beattie	2	5	4	1	1	2	41
Brady Dill	1	0	0	0	1	0	15

Top Hitters

CBA	Game Stats
Jayden Matejicka	3-3, 2B, BB, HBP, 2 R, RBI, SB
Ryan Wetmore	2-4, 2B, R, 3 RBI
Alex Fiore	3-4, 3 R, RBI
Jared Matejicka	1-3, 2 BB, R, RBI
Dylan Reynholds	1-4, BB, R, 2 RBI

Rumson-Fair Haven	Game Stats
Casper Billington	1-2, 2B, HBP
Miles Martin	1-3, 2B