By MARC NARDUCCI
Correspondent
On X @sjnard
WOOD-RIDGE — Jack Mustaro revels in being in the most pressurized of settings.
Earlier this season the Gloucester Catholic High rising senior hit a walk-off double to give the Rams a 2-1 win over Bishop Eustace in the South Jersey Non-Public championship.
Mustaro then went one step further with a game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the seventh inning as Brooklawn earned a wild 7-4 comeback win over Bordentown in the American Legion state championship game on Friday night.
It was the 32nd state American Legion championship for Brooklawn (27-6), which advances to the American Legion Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament, Aug. 7-11, in Ridge, Md. The winner of the regional tourney advances to the American Legion World Series, Aug 15-20 in Shelby, N.C.
Brooklawn, a team that has been in existence since 1952, has won four World Series titles, the most recent in 2014. Last year, Brooklawn advanced to the semifinals in the World Series before suffering a 4-1 loss to League City, Texas.
As it turns out, Mustaro had inspiration — his late father Ray — who passed away last July 28 from cancer.
“It is unbelievable, I am speechless,” Mustaro said. “It’s for my dad, he passed away last year at this time, two days from now and I am speechless and have no words.”
He had plenty of pop in his bat.
After five innings, Brooklawn trailed 4-0 and as the score indicated, and was showing no life on offense. Bordentown righthander Elijah Tradigo, a recent graduate of Bordentown High, was masterful on the mound.
Brooklawn then got a little life in the sixth when Mustaro’s RBI single made it 4-1.
Still, Brooklawn trailed 4-1 entering the bottom of the seventh.
“We have so much fight, this team, we don’t give up,” Mustaro said. “When we were down 4-0, I knew we were going to come back and win this thing, I had no worry at all.”
Griffin Clarke, a rising senior at Haddonfield, opened the inning by getting hit by a pitch. Jason Bogarts, a 2023 graduate of Gloucester Catholic, then got an infield single and Chase Kroberger, a rising senior at Moorestown, loaded the bases with a single. Recent Bishop Eustace graduate Landon Mack, a Rutgers commit, then made it 4-2 on an RBI single.
R.J. Mustaro, Jack’s brother, who played this past spring for Rowan College of South Jersey-Gloucester County’s national championship baseball team, then walked with the bases loaded, making it 4-3.
That brought up Jack Mustaro, who crushed a 2-0 pitch to right field and the celebration began.
“That was my favorite pitch — low and in fastball knee-high — and I got all of it and put it over the fence,” said Mustaro, who was 2-for-5 with a run scored and five RBI.
The win went to Audubon rising senior righthander Nik Kalogiros, who pitched a scoreless seventh inning.
“My mindset was to just be me, don’t try to do too much,” Kalogiros said. “We were going to get it done. It didn’t come until the sixth, seventh inning, but we knew it was going to happen.”
The MVP of the tournament was Gloucester Catholic rising junior shortstop Noah Danza. Brooklawn went 4-0 in the tournament and Danza had at least one hit in every game. He went 6-for-12 with two runs scored, two home runs and eight RBI.
Danza was more excited to talk about Jack Mustaro, however, than his own MVP award.
“He’s a Brooker, he’s a real baseball player, he’s a clutch dude,” Danza said. “He loves the big moment and never shies away from it.”
Mustaro — who hit .330 with 21 RBIs this spring for a Gloucester Catholic team that went 27-2 and won the Non-Public B state championship — indeed lives for competing.
In this era of specialization, he is a three-sport athlete. Mustaro is the quarterback in football and will enter his senior basketball season with a great chance to become the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Yet baseball is his top sport.
Last year Jack and R.J. Mustaro shared MVP honors when Brooklawn won the regional tournament to advance to the World Series.
Jack Mustaro admitted before his grand slam that he had a few butterflies, but they quickly went away.
“Some people can just take it (the pressure) and I love it,” he said. “For me and my brother, this is the best feeling in the world.”
