Breaking Down South Brunswick's Post 401 Regular Season

The statistics tell the story of the South Brunswick Post 401 American Legion season.

Playing in a wooden bat league in Middlesex, South Brunswick had a record of 12-4-4 (14-6-2 overall).

South Brunswick featured tremendous pitching, starting with the 4-0 record and 0 ERA recorded by Rob Johnson in his 13 2/3 innings of work.

"He throws three pitches for strikes," South Brunswick Manager Tony Cosumano said. "Hard to hit a guy that can do that."

Ryan Phillips logged 43 innings and had a 2-2 record and an ERA of 1.628. Phillips struck out 47 batters.

"Ryan's only two losses were 1-0 and 2-0," Cosumano said. "Can't fault him for that. Those games had more to do with us not hitting than him not pitching."

When South Brunswick starts the state playoffs this upcoming week, Cosumano plans to use Phillips and Theodore Moke as his first two starters in the double-elimination event. Moke was 1-1 with a 2.831 ERA in 29 2/3 innings this season. He struck out 30 batters.

Jimmy Nemeth was 2-1 with a 3.055 ERA in 18 1/3 innings. Gabe Frankel was 2-1 with a 3.406 ERA in 12 1/3 innings of work. Robbie Fliegelman was 1-0 with a 3.412 ERA in 14 1/3 innings of work. Mike Heyer, Ray Lang and Ariel Torres also had brief appearances on the mound for Post 401.

"Our pitching has been great all year," Cosumano said.

South Brunswick also had a solid offensive attack. With aluminum bats being used in the playoffs, Cosumano expects the hitting to get even better.

South Brunswick had a team batting average of .284. What made South Brunswick a really good offense, however, was patience. The team drew 88 walks and had an on-base average of .387.

"We had a lot of guys that were disciplined at the plate," Cosumano said. "You're not always going to get a pitch to hit. A lot of times you have to wait and be willing to take that walk."

Robbie Fliegelman batted .393 with an pn-base average of .485. He had 10 RBI and nine runs scored.

Chris Winkleman had a .389 batting average and an on-base percentage of .500. He had 17 runs scored and 11 RBI.

Kavin Mayce batted .283 with an on-base percentage of .387. He walked 10 times, drove in 16 and scored nine runs.

Ray Lang batted .361. He scored 16 runs and had 11 RBI.

Ariel Torres batted .333. He had seven walks and an on-base evarege of .400. He scored 10 runs and had nine RBI.

Dominick Forcella had a .260 average, with nine runs scored and nine RBI.

Michael Huber had 12 runs scored and nine RBI. Harris Fliegleman had 11 walks, eight runs scored and eight RBI. PJ Delacrus added eight runs scored.

This team will now see what they can do in the state tournament.

"Our pitching should keep us in games," Cosumano said. "By switching from wood to aluminum, we should also do better on offense.

"Hard to say how we'll do in the states. We're really not familiar with a lot of these teams. We'll give it our best."