By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
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BROOKLAWN — A three-year varsity starter for one of the premier teams in the Garden State, Noah Danza has learned to never underestimate any opponent.
He also has learned that a win is a win, regardless of how it comes.
Despite the result not coming in typical dominating fashion, top-seeded Gloucester Catholic was still able to get the job done with a 5-1 triumph over No. 32 Sterling in the first round of the 52nd Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic on Wednesday.
“Anything in the Diamond (counts), really,” said Danza, who finished 2-for-3 at the plate. “Especially the last couple years — we’ve struggled in the first round, so I guess it’s not any different this year. But I hope we pick it up on Saturday.
“It’s the same mindset every game, we’re just trying to play our game. Not trying to game plan too much on the other team. Play to our strengths, play hard, and win.”
Gloucester Catholic advances to this weekend’s second round, where the Rams will battle No. 13 Vineland at 1 p.m. at Clearview Regional High. The winner of that game draws either No. 8 Kingsway Regional or No. 10 Haddonfield on May 16 in the quarterfinals.
Tied 1-1 in the third inning, Danza hit a key triple that set up Braeden Lipoff to score him on a sacrifice fly later in the inning. The Rams retook a lead that they did not relinquish.
“I was just looking for a pitch I like,” Danza said. “He threw me a slider, I saw it pretty well, and hit a good swing.”
“He got on a couple times, big,” Gloucester Catholic coach Dennis Barth said of Danza. “He hit the triple to start us up a little bit and wake us up, but we kind of slept the whole game. Hopefully we’ll get a little bit better as we go along.”
Brayden Moughan contributed an RBI single in the fourth inning to increase the lead to 3-1 and Jason Bogart added some insurance runs in the sixth with a two-run double.
Despite being considered a yearly contender for the spot as the top-ranked team in the state and consistently being a nationally ranked program, Gloucester Catholic (15-3, 5-0 Tri-County Royal) has failed to make noise the last few seasons in the prestigious Diamond Classic tournament. The Rams won the tournament in 2023, but before that, you would have to flip the calendar back to 2001 for the last time they were victorious.
“That’s the goal right now,” Danza said of winning the Diamond Classic. Nobody is really looking at states or anything. That’s been our goal since the beginning of the year and since I came here sophomore year. We have a really good team this year. We have to pick it up a little bit and play better, but we have a really good chance.”
While Danza plans to take his talents to Division I Mississippi State, he’s just one standout in a loaded lineup. Braeden Lipoff is committed to East Carolina University, while there are numerous others who intend to play at the next level.
Riding an eight-game winning streak, the Rams certainly have the firepower to make noise in the tournament. That is, if they start playing better as a unit.
“We’ll take the win. We didn’t play very well, but you have to give Sterling credit,” Barth said. “They made the plays in the field. We didn’t really put a lot of pressure on them. We hit a lot of pop ups and struck out a lot. Their pitcher (Pat McVeigh) did a good job, he battled through strikes and he did pretty well.
“We want to play as many good teams as possible. Usually when you get into this tournament, you face a lot of good teams. The further you go, the better the teams. We have to work harder than we did today.”
Bobby Kleinow went the distance on the mound for the Rams, scattering seven hits and recording five strikeouts.
The loss surely was a moral victory for the Silver Knights (8-10, 4-2 Colonial Patriot). McVeigh was able to contain Gloucester Catholic’s powerful offense, scattering six hits and allowing four runs with five strikeouts across six-plus innings of work.
“Today this was all about pitching, and it was Patrick McVeigh. We weren’t sure who we were going to pitch, and Patrick just said ‘let’s do it.’ He rose to the occasion today, he did a great job and got ahead,” Sterling coach Tadd Kozeniewski said. “He mixed up his pitches and got them off stride. With that said, we only made one error today, so we made all the plays, but the key was really him keeping them off stride.
“We really needed this game because we had two games before this coming off the prom. The kids were still kind of sluggish. I didn’t know what to expect coming into this game today. We followed our pitching. Pat led the way, and we were able to put some bats on the ball. This is encouraging for us as we look to the future.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Gloucester Catholic hosts Clearview on Thursday at 4 p.m. Sterling hosts Holy Cross on Saturday at 11 a.m.
