Box Score
Ewing, NJ…The No. 9 ranked Lions of The College of New Jersey tallied an impressive 9-1 win over William Paterson University on Thursday afternoon in George Ackerman Park giving TCNJ’s head coach Rick Dell his 700th career win. Now in his 26th season as head coach of the Lion baseball program, Dell sports a career record of 700-328-10 and with Thursday’s win becomes just the 10th active Division III coach to have 700 or more wins.
TCNJ is now 26-8 overall with a 12-4 record in the NJAC, while riding a nine-game win streak, while WPU falls to 16-15-2 overall with a 3-11-1 record in the conference.
A top the Division III Active Coach list is Eastern Connecticut State University’s Bill Holowaty with a 1,179-439-5 record in 38 seasons. Headlining the victory list of all-time Division III coaches (active or retired) is Gordie Gillespie of Lewis, who in 54 years of coaching entered the 2007 season with 1,709 wins (1709-873-1), while Dell becomes the 16th coach in Division III with 700 or more wins joining fellow NJAC coach, Jeff Albies of William Paterson University who now holds a career record of 859-398-14 in 33 years of coaching.
With the success of the 2007 season, the Lions have now won 20 or more games under current head coach Rick Dell 23 different times, including the last 10 consecutive years. In addition, TCNJ has surpassed the 30 win plateau on 10 different seasons, including a school record 38 wins last year.
For the game, TCNJ’s senior pitcher Blake Ortiz (Swedesboro, NJ/Gloucester Catholic) flirted with a no –hitter until the Pioneers’ freshman outfielder Mike Guadango (Upper Saddle River, NJ/Northern Highlands) roped a double to left center field to end the bid. Two innings later, he added an RBI single to drive in the only WPU run of the game and take away Ortiz’s shutout bid. Guadango finished with a 2-
3 effort at the plate with an RBI and a double.
Ortiz collected his fifth win of the season and is now 5-1 after scattering four hits with one earned run and fanned eight batters in the outing.
Offensively, the Lions managed to collect 16 hits on the day with two doubles and a triple, while senior left fielder Jeff Botti (Avenel, NJ/Colonia) led the way with a 2-4 effort and three RBI’s. Junior short stop Jeff Toth (Parlin, NJ/Sayerville War Memorial) tallied his fifth triple of the season and drove in a pair of runs after going 2-5 with a run scored.
Senior first baseman Blake Bullis (Delran, NJ/Delran) also had a big day at the plate with a 3-5 effort, three runs scored, a stolen base and an RBI’s while senior catcher Gerard Haran (Matawan, NJ/Old Bridge) was 1-3 with two runs scored, an RBI and a double, adding to his pair of TCNJ career records. Haran now has 55 career doubles and 204 career RBI’s with the Lions.
WPU’s right handed senior Mike Santana (Paramus, NJ/Paramus) took the loss after 4.1 innings of work and is now 3-2. He gave up six earned runs off 12 hits with four walks and one strikeout.
TCNJ returns to action on Saturday, April 28 hosting Rutgers University-Newark in a noon NJAC doubleheader, while the Pioneers will travel to Rutgers University-Camden on April 27 for a 3:30 p.m. single conference tilt.
