The Garden State Naturals survived a tiebreaker semifinal and went 4-0-1 to earn the 17/18U Wood Bat division championship in the Labor Day Blast.
By Rich Bevensee
Blake Dunleavy accepts that he doesn’t have the smoking fastball that many of his contemporaries have, but he makes up for it with two important factors.
He has the talent and control to master three other pitches which offset his lack of top-shelf velocity. He also has the confidence to stick with those pitches through an entire game.
On Sunday evening at Diamond Nation in Flemington, this combination of talent and confidence enabled Dunleavy to conjure the best outing of his entire 2026 travel ball season.
Dunleavy, a right-handed pitcher with the Garden State Naturals, tormented batters by mixing his low 70s fastball with deceptive off-speed pitches and forged a four-hit shutout to lift his second-seeded ballclub to a 4-0 victory over fourth-seeded Ghost Squad PA Black in the 17/18 Wood Bat championship game of the Labor Day Blast at ‘The Nation.’
“You could tell in the first inning that they thought it would be easy trips to the plate, but they quickly learned that it wasn’t going to be that easy at all,” said Naturals catcher Nick Lukachyk.
Dunleavy, a 6-foot, 185-pound senior at Old Bridge, tops out at 75 mph with his fastball, but a handful of the Ghost pitchers reached the mid to high 80s over the team’s six-game weekend.
But Dunleavy complements his four- and two-seam fastballs with a mid-60s slider and changeup, which absolutely confounded Ghost Squad hitters.
“His movement is literally crazy,” said Lukachyk, a Woodbridge senior. “His slider and changeup are disgusting, really hard to hit, and if you do hit it you’re gonna hit it on the ground.”
Another facet of Dunleavy’s approach is his arm slot, which ranges from three-quarters to nearly sidearm, making his pitches appear to approach the plate even slower than they really are.
“My two-seam comes from almost sidearm and with the slider I try to go a little lower to get more spin on it,” Dunleavy said. “The four-seam and changeup come over the top.”
Dunleavy and Lukachyk both said the Ghost players may have gotten their hopes up because they watched Dunleavy warm up before he entered the Naturals’ semifinal game against the Marlboro Mustangs, and then saw that he was starting against Ghost.
“They saw me warming up and then they came out here and they thought they were able to beat me and they weren’t,” Dunleavy said. “I love seeing hitters thinking, here he comes with the fastball and then he’s off balance, out in front. It’s fun. The adrenaline was just going crazy.”
Dunleavy struck out 10 batters over seven innings while surrendering four hits – never two in the same inning – and just two walks.
The biggest danger Dunleavy encountered occurred in the top of the second when Ghost got its first two batters on base via base hit and groundball error. A groundout advanced both runners into scoring position. Dunleavy kept throwing the same offspeed stuff, relying mostly on his slider, to get two strikeouts and emerge unscathed.
Dunleavy once again showed how unflappable he is in the fifth inning when Ghost had runners on first and second with one out. Dunleavy responded by striking out the next two batters.
Blake Dunleavy pitched a four-hit shutout in the Labor Day Blast championship game to earn MVP.
Dunleavy finished his complete game with 115 pitches, which is extraordinary when considering that he threw 61 pitches in 2⅔ innings of relief in the semifinals against the Mustangs, whom the Naturals defeated 4-3 in a tiebreaker seventh inning.
Riporti suggested that while Monday’s game may have been Dunleavy’s masterpiece, the Old Bridge senior has pitched exceptionally well all summer. Dunleavy was poised for a solid travel season after posting a 2.45 ERA over 48 innings with 41 strikeouts against nine walks for Old Bridge this past spring.
“He’s been with our program for three years and he’s been a big competitor for us,” Naturals coach Jerry Riporti said. “He keeps the pitch count down, throws strikes and keeps the guys in the game.”
Of course, Dunleavy needed some offensive assistance, and the biggest lumber lifter was Naturals cleanup hitter Davis Labno, a 6-2, 210-pound sophomore at St. Joseph of Metuchen. Labno slammed an RBI triple in the first inning and added a double to left in the third.
Labno is a recent Riporti recruit. He was playing for another organization but switched to the Naturals after being disappointed with the number of at bats he was getting.
“I didn’t have many opportunities and that’s why I came to the Naturals. They gave me playing time,” Labno said. “I worked hard after the summer and came to this tournament and showed what I can do. My motivation is anger but staying calm at the same time. You gotta have a little anger in you at the plate so you can show off in tournaments.”
The Naturals jumped on top early when leadoff hitter Hogan Boyd reached on a walk and eventually scored on a balk. Labno soon followed with an RBI triple to drive in Lukachyk.
In the second inning the Naturals made it 3-0 when No. 9 hitter Garrett Rapach doubled and Boyd tripled to right center.
Michael Dantuono made it 4-0 in the third with a sacrifice fly to drive home Labno.
For the Ghost Squad, J.J. Jordan was the only player to log multiple hits against Dunleavy, going 2-for-3.
Anthony Fedejko pitched two innings for Ghost and surrendered three runs on four hits and two walks with three strikeouts. Jordan threw two innings and allowed a run on one hit and one walk. Cole Gillman and Ethan Shire pitched scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth, respectively.
During a Labor Day jam-packed with dramatic finishes at ‘The Nation,” the Naturals provided the final one of the day in their semifinal victory over Marlboro.
The Naturals led 3-1 through three innings before the Mustangs scored four in the top of the fourth to take a 5-3 lead. The Mustangs carried a 6-3 lead into the bottom of the sixth, and with no time remaining on the game clock, the Naturals stormed back with a two-out, three-run rally to tie the game.
Under the California tiebreaker system, the inning begins with the bases loaded and one out. The Mustangs scored once in the top of the seventh.
In the bottom of the frame, the Naturals’ first batter was Connor Hayeck, who drove the first pitch he saw through the middle to knock in two runs and win the game.