Baseball Rolls On In Counties, Girls Lax Falls in States

Baseball (17-4-1)

Matt Lawsky and the Glen Rock Panthers had worked so hard to get to this point in the season, but suddenly their tournament lives were at stake.

One of the best power hitters in the county up at bat with the bases loaded for the opposing team, 2 outs in the seventh inning with the score 6-2 Glen Rock.

One flick of the bat by St. Mary’s Kidane Rutty could have tied it, but this was Matt Lawsky on the mound, there would be no such thing.

Lawsky struck out Rutty on a 2-2 count to end the game and give the Panthers their first county in ... well, no one on the team could remember when the last one was.

“We had a lot of good hits with runners in scoring position and that sort of takes the air out of it,” said Glen Rock head coach Joe Sutera. “We put together some good at-bats, we didn’t get a ton of hits, but the ones we did get had good timing. It’s a good win for us.”

With the win, coupled by an Emerson loss to Ramsey, the Panthers will take on 13th seeded Ramsey at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday at Emerson High School.

Though they are the higher seed, they shouldn’t expect anything but tenacious play from the Rams who beat Emerson’s David Palladino, scoring the winning run in the top of the seventh inning to do so.

But for Glen Rock, they can savor the big win and now look on to the next round of counties and the upcoming state tournament.

“It was a great one for us, we knew going into the game that Glen Rock hadn’t wont a county game in years and years and we finally had a chance to win one,” said pitcher Matt Lawsky. “I had a rough first inning, had some base runners on but after that I settled in and made a big pitch at the end to get us out of there.”

Glen Rock had RBI singles from Tyler Blind, Tyler Patasnik and Tyler Roldan — a good day to be named Tyler it seemed — but the big hit of the game was Andrew Warner’s third inning home run.

“It was a 2-0 pitch and it looked out over the plate and I got a good swing on it and fortunately it stayed fair. It got the team jump-started and we got a bunch of runs after that,” said outfielder Andrew Warner, who’s home run in the third just stayed fair put the Panthers on the board. “I was really excited because I don’t usually hit home runs.”

With a performance full of clutch 2-out hits and strong pitching, the Panthers are looking at making a long run in both the county and state tournaments.

Girls Lacrosse (7-8)

On Monday the team traveled to Wayne to take on DePaul Catholic on a rainy afternoon in their opening North I state tournament game. 

The 10th seeded Lady Panthers and 7th seeded Lady Spartans battled right from the start, but in the end, DePaul was able to pull out a 9-7 win.

Glen Rock got out to a 3-1 lead early on, as the team used strong defense to keep the DePaul offense in check. 

After a back and forth first half, the Spartans went into the half with a 5-4 lead.

In the second, Glen Rock fought hard to come back.  Fiona McDonald scored a big goal to cut the lead to 6-5 and then Kelsey Yenco put one in the back of the net to make it 7-6 after DePaul added another goal. 

"Overall I'm proud about the way we came out, it's just a matter of execution on offense," said head coach Taryn Tabano. "I thought our defense in the first half played really well but when we settled on offense there were just too many errors." 

Though the team loses talented seniors Kelsey Yenco and Alivia Thoubboron due to graduation, their young nucleus was able to develop over the season. The incoming freshman class consists of 17 players.  

"These freshmen have learned so much and I'm proud of them added Tabano. "This is all something to learn from where we were ahead and then down by two and  to ultimately lose it by two, it says a lot."

Though they ultimately fell short of the win, in a season that many could have called a rebuilding year, the Lady Panthers fought hard and played very well at times against some of the better teams in the state. 

Boys Lacrosse (11-5)

The team lost a tough game last week, falling to Sparta on the road, erasing any chance the Panthers had of winning the Rizk Division outright.

Though they suffered the tough defeat, they came right back and beat Dwight Englewood on Thursday by a score of 10-1, using a strong defensive performance to come out on top.

Up next for the Panthers is the state tournament and we’ll update you on their seed and where they’ll be playing when the bracket is announced.

Softball (16-4)

It was a big week for the Lady Panthers, as Coach Kelly Dowell picked up her 100th win in only her 7th season as head coach.

The team is currently poised to take on a tough field in the state tournament, which will feature the likes of Pequannock, Ramsey, Indian Hills and River Dell in an extremely competitive Group II field.

The team knocked off Garfield by a score of 4-1 and then defeated Lodi 8-3.

Tennis (11-3)

The team defeated Elmwood Park in the first round of the State North I Group II Tournament, where the Panthers are seeded 6th.

They now move on to take on 3rd seeded Newton from Pop John High School on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m.