‘Trey Garutti smashed a solo home run in the third inning for Hunterdon Central.
By Rich Bevensee
When Hunterdon Central forged its way into the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group 4 championship game, it faced an Old Bridge team which had not allowed a run in its three prior sectional contests.
The Red Devils flipped that narrative on its head in the final on Friday, scoring 14 runs and securing the program’s first sectional title in four years.
On Monday, the tables turned on the Red Devils.
Hunterdon Central entered its trip to the Group 4 state semifinals with perhaps the most potent offense among the surviving teams, having scored 38 runs in four sectional games, but South Jersey champion Kingsway, ranked No. 13 in the NJ.com Top 20, had an answer for that offense.
Senior right-hander Nate Bott, a 6-foot Delaware commit, used an upper 80s fastball and superb command to bedevil the Red Devils, who were held to just three hits in Bott’s five innings of work. His performance halted Central’s late-season resurgence and propelled the Dragons to a 9-1 victory at Kingsway’s Ryan Ianneli Field in Woolwich Township.
Kingsway (24-5) won its seventh straight game and will face unranked but perennial power Ridgewood (24-7) in the Group 4 state final on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Rutgers’ Bainton Field. Hudson Feeney hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to lift Ridgewood to an 8-7 victory over Ridge in the other Group 4 semifinal.
Hunterdon Central, which many left for dead after opening the 2026 season 6-9, closes its magical season at 18-14. The young Central team went 12-4 in May and June before the setback at Kingsway. It was bidding to reach its first state championship game since 2022 when it lost the Group 4 final to Howell.
“It’s very sad that my career at Hunterdon Central is over, but we can’t be sad with what we did on Friday night,” said senior Danny Contilliano, who will continue his baseball career at The College of New Jersey. “We pushed through everything and got what we wanted.
“It’s been the most special team I’ve played for in my career. No one thought anything of us in the beginning of the season. They didn’t think we would have the run we did. But as a team we always found a way to push through adversity and get to the top of the mountain.”
Bott struck out nine while surrendering three hits and no walks. He never allowed more than one Red Devil on base in any inning.
The only Central batter to make exceptional contact against Bott was senior Trey Garutti, who gave the visitors a short-lived 1-0 lead with a solo home run, his first of the season, in the top of the third inning.
“Our coach preached the same approach all year, to be looking for the outside fastball and work the count,” said Garutti, who will continue his studies next fall at Ohio State. “I saw an inside fastball, it was there for a strike but it wasn’t the approach. I was waiting for a better pitch. He hung a changeup and I just swung at it.”
Joey Tedesco and Ryan Ganguzza were the only other Red Devil hitters to get base hits off Bott.
Kingsway’s Logan Taylor runs to third as Hunt. Central’s Trevor Wallace smothers a ground ball.
Even Contilliano, the team’s leading hitter (.459) who registered a team-record 50 hits this season, had difficulty with the big righty, going 0-for-3 against him.
“It was the way he painted the corners,” Contilliano said. “A lot of the time in the past we got balls down the middle that we didn’t miss. He didn’t really give us many of those. He found spots to get called strikes.”
The remarkable thing about Bott is that he missed almost the entire season. After undergoing surgery over the winter for bone spurs in his right elbow and enjoying a successful rehab, he pitched just two innings in the early spring before he tweaked his shoulder and was held out until the sectionals.
Bott made his return last Wednesday in a 4-1 sectional semifinal victory over Rancocas Valley. In that game, he allowed one run on three hits and one walk with five strikeouts in four innings.
“It’s amazing to experience this,” Bott said. “I’ve been waiting so long, doing everything I can to be healthy – all the extra arm care, all the little things, all the right things – to be back on the field. I love this group of guys.”
Bott looked like he was in late-season form, and not like a player making his second start since early April.
“He was working ahead in counts with a good fastball down in the zone,” Hunterdon Central coach Tom Reindel said. “ And really, when he got ahead in counts he was able to throw his changeup and curveball for strikes down in the zone. He was constantly ahead with multiple pitches, and that over the top delivery working down in the zone made it really tough.”
Kingsway began to chip away at Central starter Liam Goyette in the bottom of the third when it loaded the bases and tied the game at 1-1 with an unearned run.
In the fourth, Goyette gave way to Jake Masterton after surrendering a single and two walks to load the bases. Masterton was greeted by Logan Taylor’s two-run double and, three batters late, Austin Schmidt added a two-run single for a sudden 5-1 Kingsway lead.
The Dragons began to pile on in the fifth against reliever Tristan Ovalle. Ashton Ford scored on an infield error, Brayden Thorp singled in a run and later scored on a wild pitch, and Taylor scored on another Central miscue for the final margin.
Goyette threw three innings and yielded three runs, two earned, on three hits and four walks. Masterton pitched one inning and gave up two earned runs on three hits and no walks with one strikeout. Ovalle pitched the final two innings and surrendered four runs, two earned, on two hits and one walk.
For Kingsway, Bott was followed by lefty Jake Mangifesta, who pitched a scoreless sixth inning, and righty Brody Racan, who polished off the Red Devils with a scoreless seventh.
Kingsway’s Nate Bott, a Delaware commit, held the Red Devils to three hits in his five innings of work.
The Dragons pitching trio held Hunterdon Central to four hits and extended the team’s marvelous season. On Friday, Kingsway defeated Eastern, 12-2, to capture the South Jersey, Group 4 title, the program’s first sectional crown in 34 years.
At the helm for this resurgence is coach Bill Alvaro, in his seventh season at Kingsway after lengthy stops at Williamstown and Washington Township. On May 18 in an 11-1 decision over Ocean City, Alvaro picked up his 500th career victory.
After the win over Hunterdon Central his record stands at 506-243-1. You can bet, one more win this season for Alvaro would top that accomplishment. Alvaro is the 44th coach in state history to reach the 500-win plateau.
“Since they got here four years ago, this has been building, this senior class especially,” Alvaro said. “This has been their goal since day one. We lost to (eventual Group 4 champion) Cherokee in the (sectional) semis last year and they dedicated themselves to this happening this year.”
Reindel, a 2004 Hunterdon Central graduate, is in his first season coaching the Red Devils after a highly successful 10-year tenure at West Morris which concluded with an appearance in the Group 2 state championship game last June.
Reindel said despite building a successful program at the Long Valley school, the choice to leave for Flemington was an easy one when he got a call from former Central coach Kevin Cuozzi, who stepped down for family reasons.
“My four years playing in the Hunterdon Central baseball program meant a lot to me, and the way Mike Raymond led the program (prior to Cuozzi) meant a lot to me as a person,” Reindel said. “We built something special at West Morris and we had some success and I’m glad they’re continuing that success. Reindel’s success at West Morris included two state final berths.
“But when the Hunterdon Central job opened up and I got a phone call and they wanted me to interview for the job, I said, ‘Heck yeah.’ I would not have left West Morris for any other high school job but this one. Hopefully we can keep good things happening.”