N.B. baseball having tough time to start the season
Raiders are 5-7 after winning GMC White Division a year ago
BY GEORGE ALBANO Staff Writer
The North Brunswick High School baseball season so far could probably be best summed up by its 5-1, 12-inning loss to Sayreville last week at Rutgers Field in Piscataway.

For 11 innings, the Raiders looked every bit like the NBHS team that went 14-11 a year ago and won the GMC White Division championship.

In the top of the 12th, however, they played like the young team they are that graduated seven starters and 10 seniors in all from last year's Group IV state tournament squad.

"We've been up and down," fourth-year head coach Ryan Lillis said after seeing his team's record fall to 5-7. "We've played like a young team. We still show some bright spots at times, but we haven't been as consistent as we have been in the past."

The Raiders have improved every year under Lillis, going from 0-19 his rookie season to 11-12 in 2006 to 14-11 last season.

"We're definitely more talented than we've shown," the North Brunswick coach said. "We're a young team, but I expected us to take this thing and do a little more than we have so far. I thought we'd be a lot better than we've shown."

The Raiders were 5-5 after 10 games before suffering back-to-back losses last week. The extra-inning setback to Sayreville in particular was hard to swallow.

"Alex Taylor, our sophomore pitcher, was just outstanding," Lillis said. "He pitched 10 innings and threw only 109 pitches. He gave up only six hits and one run in 10 innings, and struck out six."

But Sayreville finally broke through with four runs in the top of the 12th to pull out the win.

"That was the third no-decision this season for Alex," Lillis said of Taylor, who's 1-1. "He's throwing well."

So is junior Jacob Baron, who Lillis calls "our best pitcher this season and one of our better hitters."

"He's doing a good job at the plate and also playing a good shortstop," Lillis said of Yarborough, who's been starting since his freshman year and is already getting looks from Division I colleges.

But besides Baron and Yarborough, the Raiders haven't been getting the clutch hits in key spots.

"The main thing is we leave a lot of runners on base," Lillis noted. "We haven't hit as well in certain situations as we've liked to, so we're not scoring guys when we get them in scoring position."

The Raiders have also been a bit inconsistent on defense as well.

"Some games we make no errors and we look like world beaters," Lillis said. "Then in other games we don't field too well."

Brandon Baldini, yet another junior, has been giving North Brunswick some big innings on the mound.

"He's doing a nice job for us in relief," Lillis said. "He's been the main guy I use in relief and he has one of our wins. That's a tough role because you come into the game cold, but he's done a nice job."

The good news is there's still plenty of time for the Raiders to turn things around and start playing the way Lillis expected them to so they can get back to the postseason.

"We have four big conference games this week," he said on Monday. "We have South Plainfield at home on Tuesday (rescheduled from Monday), then we play at New Brunswick on Wednesday, home again on Friday against PerthAmboy, and we go to Monroe on Saturday. So this will be a big week."