Tri-County Baseball League Revving Up For The Postseason

The Tri-County men’s baseball league has a long history of quality teams and talent. This season is no different as teams are getting down to the stretch run in this wooden bat league.

Cherry Hill/Pitman is the defending champion, clinching the title with a 7-5 win in 12 innings over the Washington Township Senators, to win the championship series 2-0.

The game was won when former Gloucester Catholic standout Luke Lesch hit a two-run walk-off home run in the 12^th inning.

This season there are numerous contenders to win the Carter Cup, awarded to the yearly champion.

It is now the last week of the regular season with the playoffs beginning next week.

All the teams in the 11-team league will make the playoffs.

There are two divisions in the league

Here were the standings entering this week.

(Teams get two points for a win and half a point for a loss and one point for a tie)

Team, Record, Points

SJ Grizzlies 13-2, 27.0

CHBR/Third Base 11-3, 23.5

Roughriders 10-2, 21

Camden 5-8, 14

Pine Barrens 3-11, 11.5

Burl. Twp. Pirates 2-13, 10.5

Team Record Points

Garton’s of Vineland 10-5, 22

Pitman 9-5, 20-5

Cinnaminson Crew 6-10, 16.5

Washington Township Senators 5-8, 14.0

Blackwood Bears 3-10, 11.0

There are several contenders in this league. Defending champion Pitman is always difficult to face because this is a veteran team that has had tremendous success. Leading the way is former Cherry Hill West, Rider and Villanova standout Scott Shaw, who in his first 12 games this summer was batting .343 with two home runs and 12 RBIs.

Realistically, besides Pitman, there appear to be four other contenders for the championship. All five major contenders are the only teams with winning records to date. Besides Pitman, the others are the SJ Grizzlies, who play their games at Runnemede Babe Ruth Field, CHBR/Third Base, the Roughriders, who are based out of Haddonfield, and Garton’s of Vineland.

Many of the teams have either current college standouts or former college stars.

For instance, leading the way for CHBR/Third Base is second baseman Joey Bogart, who will be a senior at Rowan and was a standout at Gloucester Catholic. Bogart was a first-team all-New Jersey Athletic Conference choice this past season for a Rowan team that qualified for the NCAA Division III World Series. In his first nine games for CHBR/Third base, Bogart was hitting .462.

He is among many former Gloucester Catholic players on the team, including Jack Mustaro, who starred this past season for Rowan College South Jersey (Gloucester)’s junior college World Series team.

The way the playoff format is set is that the two division winners are the top two seeds. Those two teams, along with the three others with the next best point totals receive first-round byes. Those byes are key late in the season, allowing the pitching staffs to get some needed rest.

The bottom six teams all play a best-of-three series next week.

After that round, there are eight teams remaining and 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 play a best of three series.

That is followed by the two best-of-three semifinal series.

The best-of-three championship series will begin Aug. 10. The championship series will be staged at Pitman’s Alcyon Park.