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Jersey Shore rallies to win Carpenter Cup title against Delaware North

Jersey Shore won its fifth title in the 32nd edition of the championship Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.

Jersey Shore celebrates winning the Carpenter Cup baseball championship Saturday at Citizens Bank Park. CAMERON B. POLLACK / Staff Photographer
Jersey Shore celebrates winning the Carpenter Cup baseball championship Saturday at Citizens Bank Park. CAMERON B. POLLACK / Staff PhotographerRead moreCAMERON B. POLLACK / Staff

Jersey Shore secured the final out of a 7-2 victory Saturday to win the Carpenter Cup baseball title, and then the rest moved quickly. The players, leaning against the first-base dugout railing at Citizens Bank Park, jumped over and piled on top of each other in the infield. They took pictures. They exchanged phone numbers. They said goodbye.

"It'll be lasting memories, but we may not see them again for years," Jersey Shore coach Mike Yorke said.

Jersey Shore won its first Carpenter Cup since 2014, and, after a ceremonious ending, the all-star team broke up. Eight seniors will move on, while the rest of the players could come back for another run next year.

"The coaches, coming into it, told us that we had the talent to win it," Toms River North junior Jared Bellissimmo said. "So we believed in ourselves and our teammates."

For three innings, it appeared Delaware North would win its first championship in the 32nd edition of the tournament. With the bases loaded in the first inning, Anthony Madonna smacked a grounder off the glove of Jersey second baseman Dan Zellman, and Delaware took a 2-0 lead.

Jersey Shore could not score in three innings against Delaware righthander Kyle Maxwell, but its offense broke out when the teams substituted in the fifth inning. Bellissimmo hit a go-ahead two-run single in the fifth, and Jersey Shore added four more in the sixth. Red Bank Catholic sophomore David Glancy and Toms River South junior TJ Scuderi each doubled.

Bellissimmo finished the tournament 7 for 10 with four runs and six RBI to earn MVP honors. Jersey Shore's 46 all-time wins are the most of any Carpenter Cup team.

"Not that the Jersey Shore needs justification that we play good baseball, but it's an exclamation point," Yorke said. "We've said it all along, that the baseball we play day in, day out on the Jersey Shore is as good as anybody in the area, and that just really proves it."

Jackson Liberty junior Matt Pickus, Freehold Borough senior Dan Chiusano and Toms River South senior Justin Fall combined to pitch six scoreless innings to end the game.

Jersey Shore's 25 players came from 16 schools, and some players just met when the team formed this spring. They rushed to say goodbye to each other, Yorke pausing to fist-bump one player — "You're awesome, buddy" — and shake hands with another — "Good job, Dave."

"[They made] friends, and then the dogpile on the field, the whole thing," Yorke said. "I thought it was great."