While Bridgewater-Raritan High School’s baseball team was in the middle of its historic 2024 campaign during his junior year, senior Tim Park was competing in his third season at Gill St. Bernard’s School.
Fittingly, not only directly contributed to all of his team’s scoring on his Senior Night against Clearview Regional High School. but also
Park scored the game-winning run in a Panthers uniform on Thursday evening.
After senior reliever Arnav Vajjhala (2.2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K) collected back-to-back strikeouts to work out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the fifth inning, Bridgewater-Raritan (6-14) limited its first and only deficit of the game to just one run against Clearview (13-8), which hails from Gloucester County.
With one out in the bottom of the fifth inning, Park (2-4, 2 RBI, R) brought home fellow senior Matt Lehberger (2-3, 2 R, BB, 4 SB) on a game-tying single before Vajjhala and his defense pitched a shutout the rest of the way, and Park smacked a leadoff double in the bottom of the seventh inning to put the winning run in scoring position.
A sacrifice bunt by senior Jack Lanum (BB) then advanced Park to third base, and with one out and the bases loaded, Park scored the walk-off run on a pinch-hit, sacrifice fly to center field by junior Colin Ricciardi to seal a thrilling 3-2 Senior Night victory for Bridgewater-Raritan Thursday, May 15, in Bridgewater.
“It’s an awesome feeling, especially on Senior Night just showing out for the boys and getting the job done,” Park said of crossing home plate to send everybody home – though in the Panthers’ case, to the common area behind Bridgewater-Raritan’s fieldhouse for a happy postgame celebration on campus.
Coming off of 206 career at-bats and 50.2 innings pitched at Gill St. Bernard’s: a non-public member of the Panthers’ Skyland Conference within Somerset County, Park was mandated to sit out for the first eight games of the 2025 season in compliance with the NJSIAA’s transfer rules before launching what has been an impactful impactful senior campaign. Even before joining the Panthers on the baseball field, Park quickly made his presence known on campus, especially given he signed to play at Quinnipiac University during Bridgewater-Raritan’s signing day ceremony back in November.
Notably, he participated in that event with classmates Lanum (Elizabethtown College) and Owen Crimmins (University of Scranton): two of the Panthers’ returning seniors who led Bridgewater-Raritan to division, county, sectional, and state championships along with a 30-3 record as juniors to round off the best season in school history.
“It’s definitely hard to transfer schools, especially your senior year, but everybody at the school and on the team has been nothing but welcoming,” Park reflected of joining the Panthers’ championship-winning squad.
“It’s just a great community to be in.”
Although a 30-3 record with four trophies in a single season is extremely difficult to top, Bridgewater-Raritan has found itself in a season filled with adversity just one year after producing one of New Jersey’s best baseball seasons ever.
But under the solid leadership of head coach Max Newill, Bridgewater-Raritan has not folded, even despite the struggles it has faced along the way in 2025.
Multiple members of the Panthers’ squad have battled injuries, and while Bridgewater-Raritan has a deceiving 6-14 record amongst one of New Jersey’s strongest schedules, nine of Bridgewater-Raritan’s defeats have been by three runs or fewer. Of these nine such losses, four of them came in extra innings, including three such gut-wrenching defeats in the Panthers’ first four games of 2025 alone en route to a tough 2-10 start to the season.
After its big win on Senior Night, even including a 4-3 upset loss in the second round of the Somerset County Tournament against Franklin High School three days earlier, the Panthers have now split their last eight games and are peaking when it matters the most.
“Baseball is a game of failure,” reflected after the win by Newill: New Jersey’s reigning Coach of the Year. “The minute you think you got it figured out, if you get ahead of yourself, the game is going to humble you really quick. It continues day in and day out, requires dedication, and requires focus on what you are doing daily. It hasn’t gone the way we wanted this year, but I am proud of them for the way they keep fighting. They could have quit at any time, but they haven’t. Just like today, the seniors came out. Some of those kids are hurt and have been battling through injuries all year and just keep grinding. If you do that, you’ll get rewarded eventually. It might not be as much as you want, but you just have to keep at it. You’re going to have setbacks in life, too, but you can’t let them define you.”
“You just have to keep working on it.”
On the flip side of this equation, because Bridgewater-Raritan’s opponents have a combined record of 166-107 (.608) through games played May 15, the Panthers have been rewarded via their strength of schedule while proving that they can continue to compete with anyone New Jersey. This bodes well for a squad with a lot of returning postseason and championship experience, especially given two of Bridgewater-Raritan’s victories have come against teams currently ranked amongst New Jersey’s top high school baseball squads with a combined record of 34-7: Ramapo High School (ranked No. 7), and arch-rival Ridge High School (ranked No. 18).
Given the high amount of variability present in a sport like baseball, for many reasons, no team in New Jersey probably wants to see reigning state champion like Bridgewater-Raritan in its playoff bracket.
Being on the right side of a close victory against a solid Clearview squad on Senior Night further justifies that claim, especially two days before the cutoff date for games played counting towards state tournament seeding.
“This is a great group, and they’ve been part of some of the best teams in school history,” praised Newill of his team’s 14 Class of 2025 seniors: Phil Alifano, LJ Aponte, Ethan Carey, Matt Cichocki, Owen Crimmins, Bobby Gillespie, Oscar Kilgallon, Jack Lanum, Matt Lehberger, Drew Lipke, Tim Park, JR Rosado, Brad Sweet, and Arnav Vajjhala. “For them to go out and get a nice win on Senior Night is another feather in their cap. It’s been a tough season, but we’ve continued to fight. We’ve been playing okay, but just made one or two mistakes and were not able to overcome it.”
“Fortunately, we were able to wiggle out of a few situations, score that winning run the seventh inning, and not go to extra innings.”
To continue the Panthers’ Senior Night tradition, Newill constructed an all-senior starting lineup to further feature his team’s graduating members of the Class of 2025. This included the Panthers’ starting pitcher in Owen Crimmins, who notably was the winning pitcher in both of Bridgewater-Raritan’s county and state championship games as a junior. While Crimmins’ final high school season unfortunately has been amongst those negatively impacted by injuries, he tossed the game’s first pitch on Senior Night before exiting the game to a roaring ovation and handing the ball over to classmate Ethan Carey (2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 1 HB).
Clearview drew three of its eight walks in the top of the first inning, but a pair of pickoff plays by senior catcher JR Rosado (1-2, BB, HBP) kept the Pioneers off of the scoreboard. Although Clearview also put five of its first nine batters on base in the first two innings, Carey and the Panthers’ defense did not surrender a run in this stretch.
On offense, Bridgewater-Raritan turned a five-pitch, leadoff walk by Lehberger in the bottom of the first inning into the game’s first run courtesy of a hit-by pitch by Rosado, a couple of steals, and a groundout RBI by Park.
With the Panthers ahead by a score of 1-0 heading into the top of the third inning, Bobby Gillespie (1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K) was the third senior pitcher to take the bump for Bridgewater-Raritan.
After back-to-back walks by Clearview sophomores Sawyer Wood (1-1, R, 3 BB) and Chase Cardile (2 BB), senior Braden Reiter (2-4, RBI, R) tied the game on his first of two singles for the Pioneers. Gillespie then responded with a strikeout, and on what looked to be a go-ahead bloop single to center by Clearview junior Conor O’Mara (2 HBP), Lehberger made an over-the-back running catch behind second base for out number two.
On the same play, he completed an inning-ending double play with the score knotted, 1-1.
Clearview senior starting pitcher Tyler Dell (5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K) kept Bridgewater-Raritan off of the scoreboard in the third and fourth innings, but after two quick outs recorded by Panthers senior LJ Aponte (1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 HB) to begin the fourth inning, the Pioneers loaded the bases and threatened to take the lead.
A pop-up to Park at third base instead kept the score tied, 1-1, after four innings, but Reiter turned a leadoff single for Clearview into the go-ahead run with one out in the top of the fifth inning, as junior Pat Yurgin was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
With the Pioneers leading by a score of 2-1, Vajjhala took the mound for Bridgewater-Raritan, and his back-to-back strikeouts prevented any further damage to launch his 2.2 scoreless innings of relief for the Panthers.
“It was nerve-wracking of course, but I knew I was going to come and close the game,” said of getting the ball a critical spot by Vajjhala, who further revealed that this was his first game back from an injury that sidelined him for the past two weeks.
“I did what I had to do.”
With one out in the bottom of the fifth inning, Lehberger and Rosado smacked back-to-back singles, and Park followed suit to score Lehberger and tie the game, 2-2. Although the Pioneers’ defense limited Bridgewater-Raritan to one run amongst its five baserunners, it was a new game on Senior Night, and the stage was set for an exciting finish.
A leadoff, first-pitch single by Wood for Clearview in the top of the sixth inning appeared to set the table for the Pioneers. With the go-ahead run on first base, a pop-up catch by Park followed by a 4-6-3 double play via Lehberger, Lanum, and classmate Matt Cichocki (BB, SB) instead rounded off a five-pitch scoreless inning by Vajjhala.
“We just weren’t able to finish out these close games, so I’m just glad that we were able to just gut it out, fight as a team, and stay together,” shared Lehberger after the game.
Bridgewater-Raritan then continued its duel at the plate against Clearview junior reliever Andrew Boerner (1.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K), who took the loss on Thursday evening. Boerner opened his outing with a strikeout, but a first-pitch, bunt single by junior Kellan Komline (2-3, 2 SB) and a base hit by junior Michael Lobosco (1-3) put the go-ahead run in scoring position for the Panthers.
The Pioneers then responded with back-to-back outs to neutralize the threat by Bridgewater-Raritan.
However, fly balls to Lehberger and senior classmate Brad Sweet (BB) at second base and left field, respectively, followed by a groundout to Lehberger capped off an eight-pitch, top of the seventh inning to set Bridgewater-Raritan up break the 2-2 stalemate and win the game in the bottom of the seventh inning.
That is exactly what happened, and on Senior Night nonetheless.
Park’s leadoff double led to an intentional walk of Cichocki with the winning run in scoring position to bring up the 5-6-7 spots of Bridgewater-Raritan’s lineup. While the Panthers were limited to 0-8 with a walk in these previous nine such plate appearances, the home team capitalized on its subsequent opportunity in clutch time.
A sacrifice bunt by Lanum quickly set Bridgewater-Raritan up to win the game with one out and runners on second and third base, and the second intentional walk of the inning of Sweet by Clearview loaded the bases and set up a potential double-play scenario, extending the game.
Instead, Riccardi’s deep fly ball to center field gave Park plenty of time to take off from third base, beat the throw, touch home plate, and erupt Bridgewater-Raritan’s dugout onto the field in celebration.
“It has been a roller coaster, and being 6-14 isn’t always great, but I know we’re going to come back, especially after losing in [the second round of the Somerset County Baseball Tournament] to Franklin,” said Vajjhala, who earned the win on the mound on his Senior Night.
“Of course that was disappointing, but now, we’re going to go back to states and try to win it all.”