By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher MOORESTOWN – With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of the South Jersey Group 3 championship game on Friday afternoon, Matt Tepedino crouched in a sprinter’s stance, hands on both sides of the dugout gate. He looked as though he was trying to keep himself from charging the field at Moorestown High School as much as he was holding back his raucous teammates. Relief pitcher Kyle Gerace calmly induced a game-ending groundout, which secured a 2-0 victory over the top-seeded Quakers that gave No. 11 Mainland Regional the sectional title in an upset of epic proportions and set off pandemonium at the pitcher’s mound as Tepedino and the rest of his teammates on the bench swarmed the players on the field. It was Tepedino’s heroics that got Mainland to the championship game when he shut down Hammonton in a 4-1 win in the semifinals. But Friday belonged to Nick Droboniku. Mustangs coach Billy Kern said Thursday night that he was hoping to get maybe four innings out of Droboniku with Jack Loefflad and Gerace in relief, as Mainland was ready to do whatever it had to in order to stay with the powerful Quakers (20-7). Kern got much more than he was hoping for, as Droboniku baffled Moorestown with an array of pitches, allowing just four hits and striking out seven while tossing eight innings. It looked as though it might take 20 innings for the Mustangs (14-12) to push a run across against Moorestown starter Scott Zimmer, who was absolutely brilliant through 8 2/3 innings. But the Mustangs, true to their style, managed to scratch across a pair of runs in the top of the ninth with the help of just one hit. 
Mainland coach Billy Kern presents the championship trophy to his team after the Mustangs knocked off top-seeded Moorestown to win the South Jersey Group 3 title on Friday. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) Roman Papademetriou led the inning off with a single, but was quickly erased from the basepaths when Matt Thomas bunted into a fielder’s choice. Matt McLaughlin then walked before Gerace’s long fly ball to right field was misplayed, setting up bases loaded with one out. Zimmer got a strikeout for the second out, but consecutive wild pitches allowed Thomas and McLaughlin to score and break the 0-0 tie. Zimmer, a University of Delaware recruit, pitched a game that will be talked about for decades. The 6-foot-6 righty threw an incredible 168 pitches, allowed just five hits in nine innings of work, and struck out 21 batters. “This is awesome! I’ve never felt like this before. Especially since we lost in basketball, I knew we weren’t going to lose two South Jersey Group 3 championships. I can’t even explain it,” said McLaughlin, who along with right fielder Drew Riska was part of the boys basketball team that lost in the sectional final to Delsea Regional this past winter. “I knew we were going to score somehow, whether it was a clean-hit ball or a passed ball like that one. I knew we were going to score. It worked. I’m just pumped, it’s awesome.” “This is unbelievable for (the seniors), for everybody, for the guys who will be coming back (next year),” Droboniku said. “We’ve had an up-and-down season. If you told me halfway through the season we’d be here, I wouldn’t have believed you. Not only to be here, but to win it is remarkable.” The Mustangs certainly were impressed with Zimmer’s performance. As his pitch count number began to circulate through the Mainland dugout, Mustangs players had a hard time believing Zimmer could continue to be so effective after such a workload. 
Senior Matt Tepedino gets his teammates fired up during the eighth inning of Friday’s sectional championship game. “He’s unbelievable,” Droboniku said. “He’s definitely one of the best pitchers we’ve seen all year. One of the hardest throwers we’ve seen. My heart was racing the whole time.” “Against a kid like Zimmer who is throwing his heart out out there, we were just hoping our guy could hang on,” Kern said. “I can’t say enough about Nick Droboniku. He went punch-for-punch with him the whole game. (Nick) featured four pitches all game long, he threw strikes in every count. We were hoping to maybe get six innings out of him. I think if he had his wish he would have gone out for the ninth inning, but we’re very confident in our staff.” Despite Zimmer’s dominance, Mainland had several scoring opportunities but couldn’t execute a suicide squeeze bunt early and then wasted a pair of chances with the bases loaded. “Early in the game we were committed to being aggressive. I wanted to take the tempo to them,” Kern said. “We’re not lighting it up statistically on offense, so we stole a bunch, we tried to squeeze bunt early. We wanted to create as many scoring opportunities as we could.” Mainland’s inability to get on the scoreboard made Droboniku’s performance that much more impressive and valuable. “Nick couldn’t have pitched any better. He kept us in the game and we just had to find a way, and we definitely did in the end,” McLaughlin said. Said Papademetriou, “He’s been a great pitcher all year and we knew he was going to throw his butt off, so we didn’t expect anything else. He did a great job performing under pressure.” The Mustangs basked in the glow of victory for more than a half hour once the game ended, sharing the moment with family, fans and a busload of fellow students who made the trip to Moorestown. “It’s an incredible feeling. All these guys, we’ve worked so hard all year,” Papademetriou said. “We definitely deserve it, especially all these seniors. We’ve worked hard all four years and it’s a great way to go out.” “It is the culmination of an unbelievable couple of weeks for these guys. We’ve won seven-of-eight. You just keep hoping it’s going to keep rolling and you can keep playing that way,” Kern said. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Mainland beats Moorestown 2-0 in 9-inning thriller to capture South Jersey Group 3 championship
