South Brunswick Storm Taking Shape

With a desire to keep a group of friends together and to play a very competitive schedule, the South Brunswick Storm U-13 travel baseball team was formed.

"My primary motivation for forming the team was to provide the players with a positive, memorable experience playing with their friends,"  Storm General Manager Rob Witschger said. "We feel we accomplished this."

According to Witschger, weather hurt the practice schedule. With a good commitment from the families and a bunch of eager players, however, the season got off to a good start.

"We have an awesome group of families that enjoy being together," Witschger said. "That’s critical to our success, since we’re basically one big family spending a lot of time together during the playing season. We have fun -- on and off the field.”

The members of the team are Tyler Allen, Jemery Brent, Onaje Davis, Michael Elia, Evan Kainer, Mikey Klimkiewicz, Jeff Lombardi, Nick Montagna, Aidan Rogers, Skyler Sciandra, Brandon Siroki, Kyle Stankevitch and RJ Witschger.

The Storm started its season by going 4-1 in the Readington Memorial Day Tournament. The lone loss came to Long Valley, 5-4, in the title game.

The manager of the storm is Lenny Siroki. The coaches are Jeff Lombardi and John Kainer.

"I coordinate the tournaments," Witschger said. "Anything that happens on the field is Lenny's. I'm a better adminstrator than a coach. Lenny is a better coach than an administrator."

The Storm hopes to benefit by the skills of both men. For starters, Witschger has them in several challenging tournaments. The team will play in the Father's Day Classic this weekend. The following week, it will take part in the Diamond Nation Tournament in Flemington. The week after that the team will take part in the Triple Crown July 4th Classic in Parsippany.

"We've got other tournaments on the schedule and more in the works," Witschger said. "By going to these tournaments, we get to play the best teams in the Northeast. I think we can be competitive in these tournaments."

So does Siroki.

“We set high expectations for the boys," Siroki said. "They work very hard during practice and the results are being seen in our game play.

"In addition to playing competitive baseball, we target developing skills through instruction, sportsmanship and having fun.  They’re kids, so keeping this in perspective and making it fun for them is important.”

So is representing South Brunswick in as positive manner as possible.

"We’re an independent team, but we’re still a town team," Siroki noted. "Most independent teams recruit outside their local area, but we want to stay within our community.  There are plenty of talented ball players here, and we want the kids to enjoy playing with their friends.”