2015 · Sully keeps you informed on scores and higlights from games he covers, and also posts his...

Aug.

201514Vol. 3/Issue 1

GLORY DAYS MAGAZINE AUGUST 14, 2015

Glory Days staffPublisher: Dave O’Sullivan/609-788-4294/[email protected] Editor: Giuseppe Ungaro/609-788-4294/[email protected] of Advertising: Bill Lynskey/609-788-4294/[email protected]: 609-788-4294/[email protected] design: Amy D’Adamo/[email protected] photography: Dave O’Sullivan(Atlantic Shore pitcher Brian Furey)

have a story idea?At Glory Days Magazine we love doing stories on qual-ity, inspiring people who are making a difference for their team, school and community. We also aim to high-light student-athletes who are doing good things on the field, in the classroom and with community service. If you have a story idea, email [email protected] at any time!

Website: acglorydays.comFacebook.com/acglorydaysTwitter: @GDsullysays, @GDgisepu

Online, social media

About the coverSince 2011, the Atlantic Shore

Babe Ruth program has sent three different teams to the world series at various age levels. The Devils are at it again this year, as the 14-year-old all-star team won its regional in Nottingham to advance to the world series in Pine Bluff, Ark.

In addition, the 13-year-old team has hosted the regional tournament for the past couple of years, giving the players a chance to showcase their brand of baseball in front of the home crowd.

The success of the program also has fed into the high school level, as schools such as Mainland Regional have been the beneficiaries of gaining some talented baseball players. Guys such as Kyle Gerace, Nick Droboniku, Jack Loefflad and Matt Thomas helped the Mustangs win a state Group 3 championship in 2014, as well as back-to-back sectional titles in 2014 and 2015. They all cut their teeth at the championship level during their days as Atlantic Shore all-stars.

Anthony Boselli, another Atlantic Shore product, helped lead Holy Spirit to its first state championship since 1982 this past spring, and Steve Myers, a rising senior at Atlan-tic City High School and A-Shore alum, led the Cape-Atlantic League in hitting in 2015 with a batting average of nearly .600.

In this cover story, we take a look at the recent success of the Atlantic Shore program, and the people who are making it happen.

— Dave O’Sullivan, Publisher

AUGUST 14, 2015 GLORY DAYS MAGAZINE PAGE 3

Glory Days on the Web

facebook.com/acglorydaysu Enjoy extensive photo galleries from games and events covered by Glory Days Magazine. Above, people gather at the annual Memorial Paddle Out in remembrance of the fourMustangs football players who died ina car accident in 2011. We posted more than 40 photos from that event. u Like us on Facebook and stayengaged on a daily basis with what is going on with your favorite high school sports teams. We also share interesting posts from around the web that feature high school sports, as well asannouncements from booster clubs. u Business owners: ask aboutadvertising packages that can help you take advantage of ourcontinuously growing social media presence. Call 609-788-4294or email [email protected]

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acglorydays.comGlory Days Magazine isn’t just a one-trick pony. In addition to our print

product, we produce stories for our website that you can enjoy between print editions. You can also sign up for our newsletter and stay informed

about various promotions we have throughout the year. So go ahead and bookmark the page on your browser, or check it on your phone.

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on twitterFollow Publisher Dave O’Sullivan: @GDsullysays.Sully keeps you informed on scores and higlights from games he covers, and also posts his “Star of the Game” afterward. You can also follow Managing EditorGiuseppe Ungaro: @GDgisepu.

Glory Days Magazine relies on local businesses to support what we do to bring you the best in high school sports in the greater Atlantic City area. Listed below

are some of the great advertisers who have gone above and beyond to show their support for area athletes and coaches, and their families. Patronize these

businesses when you have an opportunity. These are local business owners who want the successes of our high school athletes to be highlighted.

Boardwalk HondaBunting Family Pharmacy

Cumberland Green Apts.Mario’s Uptown Grill

Vic’s SubsD’Arcy Johnson Day

Join Together Atlantic Co.

Juliano’s Pub & GrillIvy RehabThink InkHi Point PubGolden Nugget TavernGMS LawBatteries + Bulbs

Jersey Shore Sports Medicine

My glory days

Shaune Slattery, Mainland Regional, 2002

By DAVE O’SULLIVANPublisher

Heading into her senior basket-ball season at Mainland Re-gional, Shaune McLaughlin

figured she had it all planned out. She needed 32 points to hit 1,000 for her career, so by the second game of the season that would probably be a done deal. Aunts, uncles and other family members were prepared to attend the second game that year, against Egg Harbor Township.

Unfortunately for her extended fam-ily, Shaune dropped a career-high 33 points in the season opener at home against Ocean City. Then again, when you come from a family of 12, nothing is ever predictable.

“It was my family, and that’s exactly how it should have been. I’d like to think I’m a humble person. It was my mom, dad and my brothers and sisters who usually showed up to the games. So that’s a defining moment for me and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” said Shaune, who now is Shaune Slattery, a married mother of three. “My parents came out on the court. It was a neat moment.”

The McLaughlin name is entrenched in the Mainland community. Shaune has 11 siblings, six of whom have played sports for the Mustangs on the varsity level. Her brother Hugh, the

seventh of the 12 kids, was an out-standing athlete, and Matt, who gradu-ated this spring, was a three-sport star who helped lead the Mainland base-ball team to consecutive South Jersey Group 3 championships and an overall Goup 3 state title in 2014. There also is Paul, Luke, Ashlee, Katie (a math teacher at the school), Zachary, Tess, Molly, Monica and Mary. Parents Paul and Denise have produced quite a lega-cy at Mainland Regional High School.

Shaune said it has been great to watch Matt play football, basketball and baseball the past four years. She helped the girls basketball team win the sectional title during her freshman year, and said watching Matt compete

for the same title in baseball in 2014 was much more nerve-wracking.

“I just told him to remember it, no matter what. I think it’s easier as an athlete. I was at that game (vs. Moore-stown, a 2-0 Mainland win) and it’s pressurized when you are sitting in the stands because you have no control over the game,” Shaune said. “I just told him — and I didn’t really have to tell him because he has a good head on his shoulders — to just stay within yourself and let the chips fall where they may. If it’s meant to happen, it will. Don’t over-think anything.”

Handling pressure is something Shaune said she takes pride in, and the reason she was able to as a college

basketball player at La Salle was be-cause of her time at Mainland, she said. Particularly being thrown into the mix on a championship team when she was just a freshman.

“That year there were six seniors on the team. That was a unique situation because I tried to emulate the qualities that they had,” Shaune said. “I definite-ly tried to be a leader, and it taught me and forced me to be a leader at a young age. I always go back to that time be-cause I was forced into a situation that I absolutely embraced.”

Shaune said what she enjoyed most about high school sports were the les-sons she learned about dedication, sac-rifice and independence.

“(Mainland) was definitely the place where I started becoming the person I am today. And, thankfully, athletics opened so many doors. And I always give the credit back to my family, the kids I played with and the friendships I was able to make here,” Shaune said. “I had a fun time at Mainland. I was fortunate enough that my freshman year we won the South Jersey Group 2 championship in basketball. I was lucky enough to play as a freshman, then I was a starter my next three sea-sons. Basketball, and sports in general, opened up a ton of doors for me. I got a full scholarship to La Salle and through that, even at college, it just afforded me so many different opportunities that without (sports) I don’t know if I would be where I am.

“I realized young that I had a God-given ability, and I made it, with the

Work ethic forgedat Mainland helpedbasketball playerachieve her dreams

See Slattery, page 9

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanShaune Slattery, who was known as a standout basketball player by her maiden name, McLaughlin, during her time with the Mustangs, finished her high school career with more than 1,000 points and played four years at La Salle University.

PAGE 4 GLORY DAYS MAGAZINE AUGUST 14, 2015


My glory days

Mario Cappelluti, Oakcrest High School, 1986


Mario Cappelluti’s career as a running back lasted all of about three seconds. With

time winding down in Oakcrest’s an-nual Thanksgiving Day game against rival Absegami in 1985 — and the visiting Falcons trailing 21-20 — Cap-pelluti was one of the up men on the kickoff return team. The short kick in a driving rain floated to him, and he knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to lateral the ball back to one of the faster players on the return team.

Nah. Heck, this was his final game in an Oakcrest uniform. He had visions of taking it the distance, etching his name in Falcons lore as a Thanksgiving Day hero. Those heroic fantasies lasted a split second, as Cappelluti was drilled by a Braves player and fumbled the ball. Luckily, Oakcrest recovered the fumble, and eventually drove down the field for the winning score.

“I caught it, started running, took about three steps and the dude hit me and the ball went about 30 feet in the air. Fortunately we recovered the fum-ble,” said Cappelluti, who now is a 47-year-old owner of Mario’s Uptown Grill as well as Uptown Guitars, both in Egg Harbor City.

While his moment as a ball carrier was forgettable, the rest of his high school career was anything but. Cap-pelluti started for three years as both an offensive guard and inside linebacker, helped lead Oakcrest to an undefeated regular season as a senior, and capped his career by earning first-team all-state honors.

“I was very surprised (to be named all-state). That’s a big thing. All-Cape is one thing and all-South Jersey, but, yeah, it was a cool thing. I got a plaque and got invited to a big dinner up in North Jersey,” Cappelluti said.

Cappelluti said he was surprised at just how successful his high school football career turned out to be. Illness forced him to miss seasons in eighth

grade and his freshman year, but it didn’t take him long to prove himself on the varsity level as a sophomore.

“I was hoping it would go well. I played all through the youth leagues with the Crusaders. I had gotten sick in eighth grade, came down with mono. I couldn’t play any sports in eighth grade or freshman year, so I kind of fell behind a little bit,” Cappelluti, a 1986 Oakcrest graduate, said. “(When I was a sophomore) they had a lot of return-ing starters who were seniors. I think two or three games into the season I ended up starting. I was scared to death. But, the more you play, the more confi-dent you get. I was just thinking ‘don’t mess up.’ We had a solid team with a lot of good guys, and the upperclass-men helped me out. They were all guys who I had grown up with and played with all through the youth leagues.

“’Don’t let us down, Cap.’ That’s what I remember them saying.”

Despite the success he and the Fal-cons enjoyed, it is a loss that still sticks

in his craw nearly 30 years later. As a senior, Cappelluti and the Falcons put together an undefeated regular-sea-son campaign and entered the South Jersey Group 2 playoffs as the No. 1 seed. They were matched up against eighth-seeded Hammonton, a team they had beaten during the season. But the Blue Devils scored the upset, leav-ing Cappelluti just one more game to play — the Thanksgiving game against Absegami when he envisioned himself

pulling off the most legendary play in school history.

“Probably that playoff loss (is what I remember most). It was so big be-cause we hadn’t made the playoffs in a long time — it might have been the first time in school history — and we kind of choked,” Cappelluti said. “That kind of overshadowed all the personal stuff.”

All-state linemanis a familiar facein Egg Harbor City

Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’SullivanMario Cappelluti, a 1986 graduate of Oakcrest High School and lifelong Egg Harbor City resident, recently found his all-state football plaque while going through some old boxes in the storage area above his restaurant, Mario’s Uptown Grill, on Philadelphia Avenue in Egg Harbor City.

Most days Mario can be foundmaking pizza andall sorts of otherItalian specialtiesat his restaurant, Mario’s Uptown Grill, in EggHarbor City.

See Mario, page 7


Still, beating rival Absegami in the rain on Thanksgiving was a nice con-solation prize, and a good way to end his high school career, he said.

“It was pouring rain and we were playing at Absegami. You kind of had to tip-toe the whole game, it was just a big mud bowl. We jumped on them quick. Being bummed out about the playoff loss or being overconfident, I don’t know what it was, but with about three minutes left in the game we were down 21-20. We wound up driving down the field and scoring. But it was always tight when Oakcrest and Abse-gami played,” Cappelluti said. “I miss it a lot. And that’s what is nice about having (Cedar Creek High) in town now. I help out there as much as I can. I don’t get to go to many of the games, but they are very supportive of me and I do what I can for them. We see the kids come in quite a bit and I do a lot with the booster club, and the coaching staff is very supportive of me.”

One of Cappelluti’s fondest memo-ries is his old coach getting the team pumped up prior to Cappelluti’s senior season with the help of a Bruce Spring-steen tune.

“Before our senior year, our coach broke out the boom box and Bruce

Springsteen was on there talking about the glory days, you know. Coach was saying ‘thirty years from now you guys will be telling stories about your glory days,’ and he went on to play the song,” Cappelluti said. “When I saw Glory Days Magazine come out, I thought it was the greatest thing.”

Cappelluti said he and some of his old teammates still relive their glory days from time to time. Every few years, Cappelluti invites a group of them to his pizzeria on a Sunday af-ternoon to watch some of the old film, joke around, and just enjoy looking back on a special time in their lives.

“A lot of guys come in and eat here, some of them, their kids go to Cedar Creek now. We got together a couple times with our old coaches and the old eight millimeter films. I’d put out a spread on a Sunday afternoon after we closed. I guess we had about 25 guys here the last time we did it. We try to do it every couple of years,” Cappelluti said. “The game is a lot different now. We didn’t pass a whole lot. It was kind of jam-it-down-your-throat, smash-mouth football.”

He said not many of the current Ce-dar Creek players who frequent Ma-rio’s Uptown Grill know that the guy wearing the apron and making pizzas and subs is a former all-state football

player. “Nah, I don’t talk about it much,”

Cappelluti said. “I guess they will know now.”

Cappelluti said one of the great things about high school football — and high school sports in general — is the lessons taught that can be carried throughout a person’s life. And he tells kids who come into the pizzeria to sa-vor the days of strapping on the helmet and shoulder pads, because once high school is over, so is that time in your life when you get to call yourself a

football player, at least for most of the guys on the team.

“I think the things you learn grow-ing up playing sports, when you ap-ply those things to life it helps you get through,” Cappelluti said. “If you work hard and put a lot into it, more than the other guys, you’re going to go a little bit further. I tell kids to work hard and enjoy it, because you only get one shot at it. You only go to high school once.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays

Mario, from page 6


Former EHT football twins find new wayto get their competitive juices flowing

By NICK KOSKOCorrespondent

Twins stay together. They look alike, have similar manner-isms — and sometimes can

pretend to be their brother or sister just for kicks. For Egg Harbor Township’s Matt and Jordon Calogero, they work out together. More specifically, they do CrossFit in their brand new, family owned gym: Ambitious Fitness NDO.

Matt and Jordon are 2011 graduates of Egg Harbor Township High School and former football players. The two former linemen were big anchors on an all-star offensive line, which also in-cluded former players and twins Alan and Alex Banaga.

Coming from a football background, the Calogero’s were known for lift-ing heavy for size and strength. How-ever, once high school ended and their football careers were over, squatting and benching more than 400 and 250 pounds, respectively, did not matter to them anymore.

“I didn’t expect immediate results when I switched my workout routines after football quite like what Cross-Fit has given me. I did a weight-loss transformation first and was weighing about 150 pounds, so I was just really skinny and really lost a good amount of muscle tone. But, right away, doing CrossFit got me into better shape than I ever had been in my life,” Jordon said.

“Starting CrossFit was a great thing. I fell in love with it and I treat it with the same mentality I would with any other sport I’ve ever played,” Matt said. “With this type of fitness, I al-ways want to get better at it every day because there is always some kind of technique I can improve on, or a pleth-ora of new goals I could set for myself each and every day.”

Although the new type of fitness has

done wonders for Jordon and Matt, it took some convincing by their father, Mike, to get them interested in a new fitness regimen. Mike, a former youth football coach, felt that CrossFit was the best option to keep his two sons in great shape and health after their foot-ball careers ended.

“CrossFit was the biggest thing out there and it really was a natural pro-gression for them to lose weight and get stronger,” Mike said. “I suggested that they should start this to kind of get away from the conventional stuff of the old days, and they took right to it”

“Even when losing weight after foot-ball, I really just focused on aesthetic training, which could range from thirty minutes to an hour with a lot of light

lifting focused mainly on the cardio aspect,” Jordon said. “Our dad started CrossFit a few years before we did and he noticed that I wasn’t quite getting the results that I was looking for. It took a little bit of convincing, but once he got my brother and I into the world of CrossFit, I knew I found something that was really special.”

“After football, I decided I would never lift a heavy weight again. I just wanted to lift light, a lot of reps and use machines. That was until our dad intro-duced us to John Stone from Oceans-ide,” Matt said. “Right after that first workout, I was immediately hooked on the world of CrossFit.”

Today, the Calogero’s are managing their family owned gym, Ambitious

Fitness NDO, in Egg Harbor Town-ship that is open to anyone who is ex-perienced in CrossFit or for first-timers who simply want a change in their rou-tine. Matt, Jordon, Mike and his wife, Caroline Ford-Calogero — who has been an instructor for three years and is “the best,” according to Mike — work out with and instruct all members of their new facility.

“Basically, finding the location was the hardest part. We got all the licenses and stuff and were able to redesign the building. Once those logistics were out of the way, we were able to start set-ting up the types of training programs we wanted and started to spread the word about the new gym,” Mike said. “The beautiful thing about our facility is that we have a standard workout ev-ery day, it’s always different. Usually that’s for the people who come in and immediately know what they want to do. We also want to build the programs to people’s needs, such as training for

CrossFit is thenew passion of2011 graduatesMatt and JordonCalogero

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanTwins Jordon, left, and Matt Calogero, 2011 graduates of Egg Harbor Township High School and former football players, have ventured into the world of CrossFit as a way to stay active in athletics. They help operate the family business, Ambitious Fitness NDO in EHT.

See Twins, page 10

“Starting CrossFit was a great thing. I fell in love with it and I treat it with the same mentality I would with any other sport I’ve ever played. With this type of fitness, I always want to get bet-ter at it everyday because there is always some kind of tech-nique I can improve on.”

Matt Calogero, former EHT football player


help of my family. And I’m one of 12 kids, so there were definitely sacrifices my brothers and sisters had to make.”

Her athletic career started early. She was dribbling a basketball as a kin-dergartener and began playing com-petitively in seventh grade. She also played softball and was a standout soc-cer player for the Mustangs.

“I remember starting in seventh grade in my first competitive summer basketball league over on 34th Street in Ocean City, and ever since then it has been sports in general as a way of life for me. My dad used to have a restaurant in Margate and I remember going across the street to play basket-ball while he was working. Ever since I can remember I’ve had a basketball in my hand,” Shaune said. “I played softball during the spring and soccer in the fall. I gave up playing softball when I got to high school because I was playing AAU basketball. I loved soccer because for as much time as I put into basketball, soccer was sort of a non-pressure sport for me. I enjoyed just running up and down the field. I picked up a soccer ball in August and put it down in November, but that’s all I needed. It was a nice release for me, and I formed a bunch of friendships through that sport as well.”

With Matt recently graduated and Mary on her way in to high school, Shaune still has a direct line into the high school life and everything that goes along with it.

“High school was a lot of fun. I mean, I’m 31 now with three kids. You look back and all your problems were relative. You look back and think about that one fight with a friend or that hard class you hated going to. You look back now and you’re like, ‘oh, my gosh.’ You’re living the dream. You’re living with your parents, you’re paying no rent. But it’s also the first time you start building your character and mak-ing your reputation. You’re going to make mistakes, but it’s where you start molding yourself,” Shaune said. “It’s the first opportunity where you start gaining some independence but still have the security of your family and your home life. That’s what I remem-ber. Just watching Matt go through high school, and my sister Mary will be there next year, some of the things that are so important to them — you can’t downplay it, though, because they are teenagers.

“It’s funny because my sister Katie is a math teacher there and we’ll get

together and talk about the drama. But that’s where kids start blazing their path into the future. You meet a core group of friends. And I think South Jersey is unique because so many people come back. Everybody knows each other. I love it. I’ll always come back (to Main-land) and enjoy it. It was a great place, and it still is.”

The overriding theme of Shaune’s high school career, she said, was build-ing a foundation for her future. It was also a time when she realized just how hard she had to work to achieve the things she wanted to.

“My brother, Hugh, played here and did well in football and baseball. It’s awesome. There’s nothing like seeing one of your siblings excel on the court or on the field. It stirs that competitive spirit and you wish you were still play-ing high school sports. It’s one of the best times of your life. Some people have the opportunity to continue their athletic careers in college, but you definitely get your foundation in high school. That’s where you build your work ethic and understanding what it’s going to take, and college takes it to the next level, without a doubt,” Shaune said. “But high school sports is where you start understanding not only if you have what it takes, but also if you are willing to put in the time. Are you will-ing to wake up early and get a work-out in, or are you willing to skip the beach that day? That all starts in high school. When you get to college, if you haven’t established that work ethic and that mental component it’s going to make college sports a whole lot harder. That’s what I try to tell Matt. It’s going to take a lot and there’s going to be a lot expected of you. There are going to be times where you don’t want to do things, but you have to be strong men-tally.”

The good part about growing up with 11 siblings, Shaune said, is having such a tight family bond. The tough part is separating yourself from the pack, so to speak. But after a brilliant high school career, and a college career that saw her play four years, including her final two as a team captain, it’s safe to say Shaune has made her mark.

“It was awesome,” Shaune said of her time at Mainland. “I’m the fifth old-est, so two of my brothers and two of my sisters had gone before me. It was unique to be a McLaughlin, but also to make a name for myself as well.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected]; on Twitter @GDsullysays

Slattery, from page 4


younger kids or adults who have never done this before. There’s also small group training that we can start off slow and eventually progress them to reach their goals.”

While the Calogero boys have a sol-id athletic background, they said their focus now that their playing days are over is to help even people with lim-ited or no athletic background get on the right path to fitness. Ambitious Fit-ness NDO is preaching just that: you can change your life.

“The way other gyms are set up that are similar to ours is that there is a big community aspect. I want that camara-derie with other places because grow-ing CrossFit and this type of training will allow more people to see just how effective it is toward a fit and healthy lifestyle,” Matt said.

“I want to reach as many people as humanly possible. We want to be able to help anybody whether it is someone older who has never touched a weight in their life or a younger kid that might happen to be struggling with his weight,” Jordon said. “This gym’s big-gest goal is to get all kinds of people passionate about working out and mak-ing it fun while they are doing this very active and explosive sport.”

Twins, from page 8 JordonBest workout routine:No routine! Do something different every day.Best food any time of day: Can’t go wrong with Quest bars.Favorite memory from high school football:Camaraderie with the team.Advice for first-time CrossFitters: Keep an open mind and alwaysgive it your all.

MattBest workout routine: Mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats.Best food any time of day: Eggs and home fries.Favorite memory from high school football:Winning a home playoff game senior year.Advice for first-time CrossFitters: It may seem intimidating, but it’s asupportive community.


A moment of perfectionBy DAVE O’SULLIVANPublisher

Pitching a perfect game was the farthest thing from Matt Lawler’s mind when he toed the rubber to start the Babe Ruth state tournament

in the 15-year-old division. He had just found out he was going to be the starting pitcher 20 minutes ear-lier. His arm wasn’t even completely loose yet.

A perfect game is one of the rarest baseball accom-plishments. In Major League Baseball history there have been just 23 of them. And that’s since 1880.

“I found out (I was pitching) about 20 minutes be-fore the game, so I was a little nervous,” said Lawler, a 15-year-old rising sophomore left-hander at Main-land Regional High School. “I didn’t know because I pitched the first game at districts and didn’t do so well, then I didn’t really pitch much the rest of dis-tricts.”

For the uninitiated, a perfect game at the Babe Ruth level means a pitcher has to get 21 consecutive bat-ters out, since at that level games are seven innings. Twenty-one batters in a row, no walks, no hits, and more importantly, no errors by the defense. That’s a difficult task on any level, and even more so at the Babe Ruth level, where players have only been com-peting on regulation size fields for two years.

Lawler said he felt pretty good in warm-ups, but had no idea he had the stuff to retire 21 straight hit-ters.

“My arm felt really good. My curveball and change-up were working so I thought, ‘OK, if I have those two pitches working I’ll do well.’ But I didn’t expect to do that good,” he said.

He nearly lost the perfect game, a 10-0 victory over Brick American, by going to a 3-and-2 count on the first batter of the game.

“I usually walk the first batter of the game be-cause I’m not really warmed up yet. I went 3-2 on him and got him to swing at a curveball. Then I just kept going. Around the fourth inning the guys were like, ‘man, you have a perfect game going.’ So every inning I went out (to the mound) I just knocked on wood and hoped I could keep it going.”

The first three or four innings were pretty unevent-ful, Lawler said, as he kept Brick American off bal-anced by mixing in his off-speed pitches with his

fastball. In just about every no-hitter or perfect game there is a stellar defensive play that helps saves the day, and this game was no different. In the later in-nings, a Brick American hitter launched a deep drive to center field that Anthony Pikus was able to run down and make a play on to keep the perfect game intact.

“I was a little scared. I didn’t really want to lose

Atlantic Shore Babe Ruth pitcher Matt Lawler achieves rarest of baseball feats — a perfect game

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanMatt Lawler, a 15-year-old Northfield resident, twirled a perfect game in the Babe Ruth 15-year-old state tournament as Atlantic Shore beat Brick American 10-0.

See Perfection, page 12


it at that point,” Lawler said. “But we were hitting really good that game and the team was making plays. They re-ally backed me up a lot.”

Lawler’s teammates decided to have a little fun with him to keep the mood loose in the dugout, telling Lawler that a relief pitcher was scheduled to re-place him in the sixth inning.

“I was a little nervous at that point that I was going to get taken out,” Lawler said. “They had their 3-4-5 hit-ters coming up. I started out the No. 3 hitter with three straight curveballs and struck him out, then just went after the Nos. 4 and 5 hitters.”

Lawler got a groundout and a pop-up to get out of the sixth, leaving just three more outs to go to record a per-fect game. His biggest enemy, how-ever, proved to be the weather. With skies threatening to release rain that might interrupt or suspend the game, umpires were trying to speed things along. Lawler said he threw only two warm-up pitches in the bottom of the seventh inning.

“Every time there was a strike (in the seventh inning) I just got the ball back, turned around really quickly and got

right back on the rubber,” Lawler said. “I struck out the first kid, the second kid popped up to second base, then I struck out the last kid. On the second batter I had a 3-2 count. My arms were shaking and on one of the pitches I lost my grip on it and it just floated in there for a strike.”

Lawler’s father, also named Matt, wasn’t able to be on hand for the game as he was umpiring a game, but Matt’s mother, Debbie, was there. Matt said she isn’t a huge baseball nut and wasn’t exactly sure what a perfect game was until some of the fathers from the team explained what a rare feat it is.

“My dad said it was awesome and that he’s never seen that in all the in-nings he has umped,” Lawler said. “(My mom) isn’t really a big baseball person. She didn’t really know what a perfect game was. She knew I was pitching well. I think she was more proud of my hitting because I went 2-for-2.

“It still hasn’t really hit me. A lot of MLB pitchers don’t even get a chance to pitch a perfect game. Pitching a per-fect game is such a cool feeling.”Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays

Perfection, from page 11


Vic’s Subs Cover Story

Stepping stone to successJayden Millstein

gets congratulated by teammate

Brian Furey duringAtlantic Shore’s

victory overFrederick, Md.,

during the recent 13-year-old regional

tournament at Sandcastle Stadium

in Atlantic City. The Atlantic Shore

program has sent a team to theBabe Ruth

World Seriesthree times

since 2011, inthree different

age groups. Glory Days Magazine

photo/Dave O’Sullivan

Atlantic Shore Babe Ruth has become a premier program in the region,helping to build a foundation for success for area high school teams

By Dave O’SullivanPublisher

Kyle Gerace stood on the mound in the sev-enth inning of the state championship game at Toms River South High School in early

June, 2014. His Mainland Regional High School Mustangs were holding a slim lead over Mt. Olive, and Gerace was charged with holding that lead and nailing down the title for the upstart Mustangs, who had entered the state playoffs a sub-.500 team with a 10-12 record.

The noise from the stands behind home plate had reached a fever pitch, as anxious Mustangs fans were delirious, knowing one of the most improbable championships in state history was at their fingertips. Tough spot for a high school sophomore to be in. But Gerace had been in tough spots before with his Atlan-tic Shore Babe Ruth teams in years prior, so he was prepared to handle the pressure.

He did just that, earning the save in a 5-3 victory. The following year, spring of 2015, Gerace twirled a gem as Mainland beat Toms River South 1-0 to de-

fend their South Jersey Group 3 championship. The visiting Indians had the tying and winning runs and second and third, but Gerace calmly struck out the last batter to ice the title.

Several of his Mainland teammates, guys such as Nick Droboniku, Matt Thomas and Jack Loefflad, had all cut their championship teeth as 13-year-olds in 2011 with Atlantic Shore. That team made it to the Babe Ruth World Series, the first time Atlantic Shore had ever advanced that far. Prior to 2011, A-Shore had just one state championship to its credit, the 2004 team that was led by former Mustang standout Char-lie Law.

Atlantic Shore has made two return trips to the world series since 2011 and cemented itself as the premier Babe Ruth program in South Jersey. The team that made it to the world series in 2011 — a team that featured such future high school stars as Antho-ny Boselli of Holy Spirit and Steve Myers of Atlantic City — made a return trip in 2013 as 15-year-olds. And this year’s 14-year-old squad punched its ticket to Pine Bluff, Ark., earlier this month. This year’s

13-year-olds advanced to the regional tournament, hosting it at Atlantic City’s Sandcastle Stadium for a fourth straight year.

Atlantic Shore’s ability to continually host a re-gional tournament, as well as make several trips to the world series in different age groups, has made it a legitimate powerhouse in the region when it comes to Babe Ruth baseball, which in many states is sort of the minor leagues for high school baseball. For many players, playing for Atlantic Shore is the first rung on a ladder that often includes multiple years of high school varsity experience, the Atlantic County Baseball League and sometimes even high-level col-lege ball.

It could be argued that Atlantic Shore has had a di-rect impact on the resurgence of the Cape-Atlantic League’s success at the high school level. It all start-ed with that group of 13-year-olds in 2011.

“We are kind of the main feeder program for a cou-ple of area high schools. There’s AAU and the TSC

See Success, page 15


league. A lot of kids play both, but they don’t play any real tournament style baseball. They may play tournaments, but there is no district tournament, state tournament, regional tourna-ment. They don’t have that tournament trail,” said Mike Gill, who coached this year’s 13-year-olds. “In 2011, we had that group who are now either outgoing seniors (in high school) or juniors who will be seniors next year, and they were just really talented. We didn’t even win the district that year. We ended up fin-ishing second in the district and we went to the state tournament because they take the top two teams. We ended up winning the state championship and going to regionals. We finished 2-2 (in pool play) and barely made it out. We just got hot, won the regionals and went to the world series.”

Gill said that for many years, AAU was the way most players decided to go when it came to playing their sum-mer baseball. But now, after several years of high-level success, he sees more and more players wanting to play locally for the Babe Ruth program.

“At that time (2011), AAU was really coming on strong and we were losing kids to AAU. But then that team made that run and all of a sudden kids were like, ‘wow.’ They were reading about it in the paper, they were seeing it on the news. Those kids turned into kind of like little rock stars. Kids started say-ing, ‘well, I want to do that.’ So you started seeing kids who were migrating to travel ball come back because they wanted to play A-Shore,” Gill said. “From that 2011 team, every year after, we started to become more and more successful. A lot of it has to do with the kids seeing the press coverage, when TV 40 was here. All the media outlets started to pick up on what these guys were doing and I think it really started

giving the league a little bit of recogni-tion. That’s where it kind of took off, that team going to the world series. They went again in 2013, the same group. And then you see those kids be-come successful at the high school lev-el and they talked about it. They would reference playing Atlantic Shore.

“I think our 14-year-olds going to the world series this year definitely re-lights that fire. At any time that could become a distant memory, so it was good to see them get there. Our num-

bers are way down, but what we are getting are the higher-end players.”

“When that whole group of kids (in 2011) was in Little League, you could just see that group of kids was just unbelievable. It was like the per-fect storm. They were able to get to the world series and it just sort of built from there,” said Dave Geiger, coach of the 14-year-old team that is heading to this year’s world series. “When they were all 12 years old, in Little League, Northfield ended up winning the dis-

tricts and the section. They ended up getting eliminated in the states by Toms River. It was the perfect storm and it couldn’t have happened at a bet-ter time for the A-Shore program.” Pressure cooker

Competing for state, regional and national championships exposes young ballplayers to pressure-packed situa-tions. It’s really their first taste of that kind of competition as they progress

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanShortstop Brandon Lashley, an Ocean City resident and member of the Atlantic Shore Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-stars, makes a throw to first base on a slow roller during a recent practice. The team was preparing for the world series, the third trip in the last five years for a team from the Atlantic Shore program.

Success, from page 14



to the regulation-sized field following their Little League careers.

For a player such as Gerace, facing those types of situations at age 13, 14 and 15 prepared him for what he would eventually face at the high school var-sity level.

“It’s obviously great to see (the 14-year-olds) make another run at a world series. It’s an experience like no other. You bond as a team. And you see down the road that it leads to success. These coaches (Geiger and Dennis Foreman) are two of the best coaches in the area, so you see these kids are get-ting top-of-the-line coaching and that leads to high school success,” Gerace said. “I’m glad these guys are getting this experience. These guys play in huge games and I remember it like it was yesterday. It sticks in your brain. They are big moments these guys are playing in, and when you get to high school and have another big moment you think back, did you succeed? Did you fail? If you failed, obviously you want to succeed now, so it makes you a stronger and more poised baseball player.”

Gerace said his first taste of real pres-sure came as a 13-year-old in a game against Maryland during the regional tournament. He started out the game by walking the first three hitters. He had hit a moment of truth as a pitcher. If he didn’t find a way to buckle down and work out of a jam of his own doing, that game was going to get out of hand in a hurry.

“I remember one game, specifically, a game against Maryland in the region-als. I walked the first three guys, coach came out to talk to me and I ended up striking the next three hitters out. It was one of those games where you take a deep breath and think, ‘OK, I battled through that. If that ever hap-

pens again, I know I have the strength to stay focused and push my way through a jam like that,” Gerace said. “So it teaches you to stay calm in cer-tain situations. Every game (in regions and the world series) is a battle. You want to win that world series. That is your ultimate goal.”Next-level baseball

Gill said he believes Atlantic Shore can now be considered a top-notch feeder program for several area high schools such as Mainland Regional, Ocean City, Atlantic City and Holy Spirit. The Atlantic Shore coaches work with the area high school coach-es to try to develop young players into the types of players who can make an impact once they get to the varsity lev-el. Atlantic Shore truly has become a “program” and not just a couple of lo-cal all-star teams.

“I think our program has gotten to the point where other teams in South

Jersey — or even regionally — know who we are. We were at states and a guy from Nottingham I was talking to, and Nottingham has always been the Mecca (of Babe Ruth baseball), he was saying when he saw they were play-ing Atlantic Shore he knew they were in for a tough game because our teams are always good. We’ve hosted the regionals for four years now, and the Sandcastle is a great facility and they encourage us to host, so we can pretty much host whenever we want to. It’s a financial burden so we have to re-ally evaluate (every year) if it makes sense for us to host, but we really think that hosting the regional tournament is a help in getting kids to play. We try to use the stadium to not only get the kids in our area to want to play, but I think it has given our program noto-riety because the kids remember their experience,” Gill said. “I think since 2011 we have become a very high pro-

file program, both in South Jersey and regionally. Prior to 2011 we had only won one state championship, in 2004. It used to be if we got to states that was a win for us. Now we expect to win the state tournament, and if we don’t that’s a disappointment for us.”

“Atlantic Shore is a good program, one of the best around. This team right here, pretty much 90 percent of the credit goes to these coaches. They come out here every day, volunteering their time. They aren’t getting paid for this. It’s a great thing,” said Solomon Griffith, a 14-year-old from Ocean City who is a member of the team heading to this year’s world series. “It sets you up for good high school experiences when you are on a good team like this. It’s a lot of fun.”

Gill said a main focus of the Atlan-tic Shore program is to begin to teach players the finer points of the game. To get them to understand that their talent has gotten them this far, but it will be their ability to learn how to play the game better that will give them an op-portunity to be successful at the high school level.

“We told the kids that we hope they take something from what we try teaching them and use it at the next level. We are very proud to read that Kyle Gerace, Jack Loefflad, Anthony Boselli and all these guys are first-team all-conference players. Steve Myers is the top hitter in the Cape-Atlantic League. And these guys all come back to our practices to show that they really appreciated what they learned from us. To see them taking the things they learned and using it to become suc-cessful is great. A lot of times at age 13 you just have raw talent and are better than other kids. We try to teach them more than just winning today. We want them to become good high school play-



Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanAtlantic Shore Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-star team coach Dave Geiger, left, has nearly 30 years of youth baseball coaching experience and his son, Lee, an assistant coach, is a former Atlantic Shore player.


ers. We try to teach them a better ap-proach,” Gill said. “Some of the high school coaches come out to our prac-tices to watch the kids, and we ask their opinions like, ‘hey, where do you see this kid as a 15- or 16-year-old play-er?’ And we bring out some of the old players so they can see the same thing. If you don’t have a more selective ap-proach at the plate, you’re going to see the game even out on you a little bit. These tournaments are really their first taste of other kids catching up to them. We always tell them that at age 13 you might be able to just walk onto the field and be better than other guys, but at 14 that changes. If you don’t keep work-ing at it and make adjustments, your raw talent isn’t going to take you where you want to go.”Community support

One thing about Babe Ruth baseball that Gill said appeals to him is the fact that the kids are playing locally, and representing their towns. And when they do have success, that attracts a lot of support locally, from parents as well as business owners and fans who help raise money to send these teams to re-gional and world series tournaments.

“When we were at the fundraiser (at Wonder Bar) I didn’t think there would be too many people there, but every-where I looked there were people. There are a lot of people out there sup-porting us,” said 14-year-old all-star Brandon Lashley of Ocean City. “What we are doing says that there are a lot of great players in South Jersey, and a lot of great coaches that help us get bet-ter. That definitely gives us incentive to keep working hard.”

“I think some of the parents of those kids (from 2011) appreciated that run. Some of the best times they have had as baseball parents started (with Atlan-tic Shore). It’s hard as kids in the early

stages of their life to look back already and understand that (an experience) is beneficial to them. I think that’s what made these kids so successful at Mainland and Holy Spirit, and the individual kids, was those guys were able to look back and realize some of the things they were taught, they were able to take with them and become suc-cessful because of it. That’s why they like to come back and teach the kids the value of it,” Gill said. “One thing that I think is lost a little bit these days is civic pride. Representing your town and playing alongside your friends. At

13 years old, specifically, there are no scouts looking at you. Be a kid, have fun, represent your town, and hope-fully do something special. Our league has proven that it can be done here. I think if we can keep the best players here and playing for their towns, I think the memories they will end up having will be much better than just playing random weekend tournaments somewhere. We certainly want people to know that there is very good base-ball right in their own town and they can have a great experience with it.”

Geiger agreed that the success of the

Atlantic Shore teams during the past four years has sparked a renewal of hometown pride.

“The community really takes great pride in it. Even those guys that Mike had when they were 13, their parents are still coming out to help. You have all these parents who don’t have any sons in the program anymore, but they are still there to support it because they had such a great experience,” Geiger said. “Even my son, Lee (22 years old), who played for A-Shore back in the day, the kids he played with he is still really good friends with to this day. It’s something that carries on and you al-ways remember your A-Shore all-star team. These kids build lasting relation-ships, remembering the summers they played together.”

Gerace, who is one of the most highly recruited baseball players in South Jer-sey after earning second-team all-state honors as a junior this past spring, said he has played both AAU baseball and Atlantic Shore. He said it’s tough to top the experience a player gets when you see entire communities rallying around your efforts to win a national tourna-ment.

“I hope some of these kids came out to our games when we were playing as 15-year-olds. You just see the fan base. These bleachers are filled down both foul lines. It’s an experience that you will never forget,” Gerace said. “I hope these kids saw that and realized that this is a cause bigger than themselves. It’s a close community. You’re playing for a championship in this. When you are playing AAU, you’re playing for yourself or your playing for a college coach to notice you. If it was up to me, I would play this all year, non-stop. This is my favorite kind of baseball. There’s no ‘I’ in team here.”Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays


Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanKevin Foreman, shortstop for the 13-year-old all-stars, makes a throw to second base during Atlantic Shore’s win over Mary-land in the recent regional tournament at Sandcastle Stadium in Atlantic City.


Follow us at facebook.com/acglorydaysAlejandro Ramos (7)

congratulatesJake Lamonacaafter Lamonaca

scored a run duringAtlantic Shore’s big

win over Marylandat the Babe Ruth

13-year-old regionals at Sandcastle Stadium in

Atlantic City.Check out Glory Days

Magazine on Facebook for several photo

galleries of theAtlantic Shore

13-year-olds and 14-year-olds.

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’Sullivan


A summer to remember


After winning the state cham-pionship last year and with a very talented team returning,

parents of the Northfield Junior League softball players figured their summer vacations would be spent in Orange, Ct., this year. Suburban Connecticut might not be the choice destination for a summertime getaway, but this group of parents wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Led by a pair of Mainland Regional High School varsity standouts, Gil-lian McCarthy and Mackenzie Bren-nan, Northfield won its second straight state championship this summer and advanced all the way to the regional fi-nal before falling to host Connecticut. Being one game away from the Junior League World Series was a bitter pill to swallow, but head coach Mike Toner said it didn’t dampen the accomplish-ments this group has enjoyed the past couple of years.

“It was really a special run. We have a really close group of girls, and their families have become really close. I think the memories that we generated this year — and it’s really a continua-tion from last year — those are going to stick with these girls and it will be something that they look back on and will really cherish the memories and their accomplishments,” Toner said. “Not everybody gets to be a two-time state champion. I think when they look back, the accomplishments and the good times will hopefully be the over-riding thing that they remember.”

“It was a great group of parents who traveled well together, and everybody really got along well together. So it was a great experience, not only for the players and coaches, but for the parents as well. I don’t think it’s very typical when you get a big group of people like that together and everybody gets along, but that was the case with this group. It’s something that none of us will for-

get anytime soon,” said Pat McCarthy, Gillian’s dad. “It was like a mini-va-cation. We took off work and went to Connecticut. It was a great time had by all. A lot of the siblings came up and a lot of the players’ families were there to lend their support and have a good time. Even just staying at the hotel was a blast. We pretty much had that Mar-riott taken over by the Northfield con-tingent.”

Having a pitcher like McCarthy was a big reason Northfield was able to win back-to-back state championships and nearly advance to the world series in Kirkland, WA., this summer. The

left-hander started all year as a fresh-man for the Mainland Regional varsity team, leading the Mustangs to a berth in the South Jersey Group 3 playoffs. Northfield was untouchable in its first two games of regional play, beating Delaware 9-0 and New York 8-0. It then got past Pennsylvania 7-4 to fin-ish pool play undefeated.

In the Mid-Atlantic bracket cham-pionship, Northfield jumped all over New York, winning 16-6 to set up a title game matchup against host Con-necticut. The run finally came to an end with a 5-0 loss, but Gillian said going through the rigors of an intense high

school varsity season helped her deal with the pressure at regionals.

“We have been playing together for a couple of years now and we all really get along. We have a good chemistry on and off the field. We are like sisters, like one big family, so I think that if we played like we knew we could we would have a chance to win a lot of games,” she said. “I think (playing var-sity) helped me a lot. It helped me learn how to play in pressure situations.”

“I think it was a real learning ex-perience for Gillian and Mackenzie through the varsity season. They were so used to being the stars of the team and that’s a lot of pressure. When we got up to regionals, Gillian is so close to these girls that she didn’t want to let them down and the pressure of that, and how she handled that, I think the experienced she gained by playing at the varsity level all year, you could just see the maturity in her,” Toner said. “As the competition got better, she just got stronger. When we needed her to step up she seemed to find another level, and that’s a testament to her ex-perience and the level that she is now used to playing at. She responds, and it’s really fun to watch.”

The loss in the title game didn’t put a damper on a very enjoyable summer, Toner said.

“We talk about it a lot and we tell them to try to take in what they are ex-periencing. Try to remember their feel-ings, after the game, during the game, and just try to remember that. It’s the stuff that when they do look back in 20 years and get together, I think they really made lifelong friendships. They are going to get together and reminisce about these times. And it’s not just go-ing to be the times on the field. It’s go-ing to be the hotel stays, the times at restaurants when we went out and had 50 people together. When they look back on this experience, those are the types of things they are going to re-member,” Toner said. “We tried to cre-ate a positive experience, and not just the game experience but the overall experience for this group. I think that’s what is really special. I think this is something they are going to look back on favorably and they are going to

Junior League Softball

Players, coaches,parents enjoyedNorthfield’s run to the regionals

Glory Days Magazine file photo/Dave O’SullivanGillian McCarthy helped lead Mainland Regional High School to a berth in the state playoffs as a freshman this spring be-fore guiding the Northfield Junior League team to its second straight state championship.

See Summer, page 25


My glory days

Alvin Cintron, Absegami High School, 2000


Alvin Cintron lives within ear-shot of the Holy Spirit High School football field. There

are mornings when he hears whistles blowing and coaches barking, and as he’s having a cup of coffee his mind wanders back to Absegami High in the late 1990s. He’ll let the memories lin-ger for a bit before he has to get back to reality and head off to his job as the general manager at Chickie’s & Pete’s in Egg Harbor Township.

Cintron doesn’t live in the past, but now that he has returned to the Jersey Shore after years of working and liv-ing in Philadelphia and North Jersey, the former Braves football and base-ball player doesn’t mind at all when some of those memories pop back into his mind. Like many successful high school athletes, Cintron remembers his time at Absegami fondly.

“My house is actually directly across the water from Holy Spirit, so I hear them out there, I hear the whistles blowing. And the smell of fresh-cut grass reminds me of football, of stretching before practice. That’s what always triggers the memories,” said Cintron, 33, who grew up in Atlan-tic City and Egg Harbor City. “Those little triggers are always there, whether it’s a smell, a whistle, hearing a coach digging into somebody. Things like that take me back. When you are in that moment (as a high school player) you’re not happy you are being yelled at, but I don’t think there is a guy out here who doesn’t want to be yelled at like that again.”

Cintron said he has one piece of ad-vice for current high school athletes.

“Slow down,” Cintron said. “I think everything in high school moves 100 miles per hour. You look up, and four years is gone. One of my clearest memories is playing against Oakcrest on Thanksgiving Day, looking up at the clock and seeing the time running down and thinking, man, this is the last minute of my career. And when that’s

gone, it’s gone. So my advice is to slow down and enjoy it.”

Cintron, an all-conference perform-er who graduated from Absegami in 2000 after transferring back home after spending his freshman year at St. Jo-seph in Hammonton, did have a chance to play at the next level. But after play-ing as a freshman at Kean University, Cintron decided it was time to start fig-uring out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

“At that age, when you are 18, a lot of guys are still thinking ‘I want to play in the NFL.’ But I was always the kind of guy who was like, I’m not making it to the league. I wanted to get a good job, that was my focus,” Cintron said. “There were guys I knew who played semi-pro ball until they were 28 or 29, still chasing that dream, meanwhile I was already six or seven years into my career and making good money. It’s hard, I guess, to tell a kid to gear back his expectations.”

Like many high school athletes, the game that stands out most a decade or more after their playing career is a tough loss. For Cintron, he remembers a football game against Atlantic City during his senior year as if it was yes-terday. The Braves had a 10-point lead on the top team in South Jersey with less than two minutes remaining, and in an instant certain victory turned to

disaster. Life lesson No. 1 for young Alvin: nothing is as certain as it seems, and you have to keep going until the final whistle.

“The game that stands out in my mind was my senior year against At-lantic City, the year they won the Group 4 championship. We had them on the ropes and were up by 10. At the time, my friend Jamar Reynolds was their big running back. Every game he would have 100 or 150 yards and we held him to something like 60 yards on 26 carries. I had a blocked field goal, a blocked extra point, a couple sacks. Just enough to keep them on the ropes. We were up by 10 with two minutes left and lost. They had two 60-yard touchdowns in 1:30. We had the best team in South Jersey beat, we’re on the sidelines hugging each other and think-ing the game was over, and lightning struck twice in less than two minutes. As serious as I was about baseball and football, that was the first time I re-member crying and physically being in pain. I was always the guy who was like, ‘listen guys, this is just a game. It’s not life or death,’” Cintron said. “It was early in the season, but that kind of set the tone. They went one direc-tion after that game and we went in the other. It kind of derailed us a little bit. I just remember that was the first time when I wasn’t the guy walking around

saying ‘hey, it’s just a game.’ I was the one who had to be consoled. I couldn’t fathom how that got away from us.

“The series of events that led us to (getting a 10-point lead), I felt like fate was on our side. And just as quickly it got snatched away. And it was one of those things that we never recovered from. We had all the talent in the world. We had four or five guys who were all conference, but at the end of the year we were barely .500. It was one of those things we definitely carried with us. I let a lot of those things go, but that’s one of those things that kind of still digs at me. I recently went to a buddy’s wedding, and two guys (from the Atlantic City) team were there and they kind of reminded me about that.”

There definitely were highlights, though.

“My best game was probably my se-nior year, a consolation game against Highland. I had about 22 tackles, two of them were just destroying kids,” Cintron said. “That was one of those games where I just said to myself that this was going to be one of the last games of my life and I just reacted. I guessed every play right. I didn’t read my keys, I just guessed right 99 percent of the time.”

Cintron also was a talented baseball player, and as a senior he pitched the Braves to a win over a powerful Mill-ville squad. Unfortunately, that was way before the popularity of the inter-net, and all his efforts garnered were a few lines in the Press of Atlantic City the following day.

“Millville was a big-time baseball program and we hadn’t beaten them in years. My senior year I pitched a com-plete game and we beat them 4-2. It was one of those things that was just surreal. They were one of the top teams in the state at the time and I was just some skinny kid who threw the ball kind of hard. I wasn’t really a pitcher, I was more of a thrower. It was kind of like the game when everything comes together, and it was perfect because it was against the No. 1 team in the state. It was an out-of-body experience,” Cintron said. “I remember reading the Press every day because back then there wasn’t Glory Days, there weren’t all these websites. I remember the

Being home againstirs memories forformer Braves star

Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’SullivanAlvin Cintron, 33, was a standout football and baseball player at Absegami in the late 1990s. Today, he is the general man-ager at Chickie’s & Pete’s in Egg Harbor Township.

See Cintron, page 21


Press coming out every day with huge stories about Millville winning. When we beat them and gave them their first loss, the write-up was about two lines. It was something like, ‘Millville lost, 4-2, Alvin Cintron gets the win.’ But to us it was a big deal.”

For Cintron, though, playing high school sports was never about acco-lades or awards, and it wasn’t about trying to land a college scholarship. To him, high school sports was a way to compete alongside his friends and get that feeling of accomplishing some-thing that was bigger than himself.

“The things I take from (my high school career) were before and after the games, the conversations we had among ourselves. There were also a lot of guys I played against in high school, from Atlantic City High or Oakcrest or whatever, and at the time you think you are sworn enemies because you go to different high schools. Some of those guys now are some of my best friends. In high school, your mentality is that guy is your enemy, but those are some of the best guys I’ve met in my travels,” Cintron said. “I didn’t want to go to a school where football was my job because I didn’t think that was my

ticket out. In my mind, I wasn’t good enough to go to the NFL or play at a big school. I went to Kean Univer-sity and played my freshman year, but eventually decided to let my passion go and I just went to school and worked.”

Cintron said he was talented enough to continue playing football at Kean University, but, ever the realist, knew that eventually he would have to take steps necessary to ensure that he had a future beyond the gridiron. He decided after his freshman year of college that he better get started on that path sooner rather than later.

“I was an Egg Harbor City kid, my family didn’t have much money, I was the first to go to college. I remember not having money to eat or to go out with my buddies, so once I finished freshman year I got a job serving and bartending. I just decided I wanted to make a career out of (the restaurant business). I realized, even before I got to college, that football wasn’t going to be my life,” Cintron said. “The biggest draw to high school sports for me was that I got to play alongside my friends, the people I grew up with and the peo-ple that I loved. A lot of my friends knocked me for not pursuing football harder (after high school), but I don’t regret it. The joy of spending that time

with people you will never forget far exceeds the joy of calling yourself a superior athlete.”

In a way, high school sports has never really left Cintron, however. As general manager at Chickie’s & Pete’s, a number of the people he has working for him are current high school athletes or young adults who are not that far removed from their own playing days. Now that he is back in the area, he also gets to see some of his former coaches on occasion.

“I’ve always had a love affair with South Jersey. I lived in North Jersey for years, but I always missed home. Now that I’m home, you do think about the people you played with and you run into people you haven’t seen in years. I kind of turned that off when I wasn’t around, but now that I’m here that’s happening a lot,” Cintron said. “We hosted the Absegami coaches a few weeks back and a lot of those guys were my old football and baseball coaches. Brian Wastell is still the head baseball coach there. We were his first baseball group. John Murray was my football coach, Gene Barber was here, the old wrestling coach. It’s funny because you see those guys, and they have had thousands of players come through and they can look at you and say, ‘hey, re-

member that one game when you did this.’ The guys who commit that time, they value that.”

Cintron said he had hoped to end his high school career as a local hero, walking off after the Thanksgiving Day game against rival Oakcrest to the cheers of the fans, the band playing. Instead, he walked off in a rain storm with only a couple dozen folks left in the stands once the final horn sounded. Although it wasn’t a fairytale ending, it’s an ending he will never forget be-cause it’s a memory he got to share with the people he cared about most.

“I grew up going to that game every year and it never rained. It was always a perfect day and there were masses of people. And my senior year it was raining sideways, there were only a handful of people in the stands. In my head I pictured us coming off the field to cheers, trumpets playing, and it ended up being just my dad and his friend,” Cintron said. “But the biggest thing was, at the end of that game we took a picture of a couple guys and I remember my buddy’s dad crying be-cause that was going to be the last time we played together.”Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays

Cintron, from page 20

Strength in numbers

PAGE 22 GLORY DAYS MAGAZINE AUGUST 14, 2015

Commentary

Paddle Out event in memory of Mainland boys a way to remember, celebrate life

The tide is turning.August 20, 2011 started out the way just about

any other summer day, in any other year past, had. Hot, sunny, nearing the end of high school football training camp. The Mainland Regional players headed off to Old Country Buffet in Mays Landing

for lunch to close out a long week of workouts.

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t just any other summer day at the Jersey Shore.

Four Mustangs play-ers — Casey Brenner, age 17 at the time, Nicholas Conner, 16, Edgar Bozzi, 16, and Dean Khoury, 15 — were killed in an automobile accident on the Garden State Park-way. Four other Mainland players who were in the

vehicle were injured. The deaths hit the Mainland community like an uppercut to the jaw. Families instantly grief-stricken. Mothers and fathers losing sons, brothers losing brothers. The agony and sad-

ness was palpable throughout the entire area. National news organizations sent reporters to tiny

Linwood to tell the story, a story that should never have to be told.

The tide is turning.The thing about some stories, however, is they

continue to unfold, long after the first few pages are written. Sometimes when you think a story is over it branches out in new directions. The initial shockwave from the death of four teenage boys with seemingly their whole lives ahead of them eventu-ally gave way to an outpouring of support from sur-rounding schools, communities and families.

It was the kind of life event that while very few have personal experience with, nearly anyone could empathize with what the families involved were going through. Death comes to us all, but there are times when we are not prepared for it. August 20, 2011 was one of those times.

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows how difficult a process it is to get through. Grief, heartache, a sadness you’ve never felt before, an-ger — these are all emotions that flood the body’s systems, almost like a mini tornado going on inside your head. It can take years, sometimes, for people to adjust to life without their loved ones. Some are

never able to. I lost both my parents before the age of 26, and

spent the second half of my 20s almost in a daze. Life as I had known it was changed forever. I went through all the emotions, the stages of grief. In the end, what I found comfort in was knowing that Mike and Noreen O’Sullivan had done the best job they could in raising eight children, and for me not to go out and do the best I could, strive to reach my dreams, would be a disservice to the foundation our family was built upon.

The tide is turning.Football is a game of attrition. It’s a game that

demands mental toughness, physical toughness, the ability to adapt, and the ability to play through pain. Life, in many respects, is the same. Life doesn’t ask you how you want things to turn out. You have to be able to adapt to its changes in order to be suc-cessful, in much the same way football players must adapt during the course of a game in order to have a chance to win.

Football also teaches life lessons. It teaches you to lean on the people around you when times get tough. That we are all in this thing together. It teaches you

DaveO’Sullivan

See Strength, page 23

Family and friends of the four Mainland

Regional football players who lost

their lives in a car accident in 2011

gather every August at the 30th Street

beach in Longport to pay their

respects to the boys and offersupport to the

families involved. This year, the

crowd swelled to more than

100 people.Glory Days Magazine

photo/Dave O’Sullivan


that when things aren’t going your way, when your back is up against the wall, that’s when you have to fight the hardest and give the most effort.

The Brenner, Conner, Bozzi and Khoury families have had to fight hard the last four years to keep it together; to move on and continue to live their lives despite being dealt the tough-est blow that life can dish out. Surely there have been times when it felt as though it was 4th-and-25 on their own 25-yard line in the game of life. Those families had to dig deep into their playbooks to come up with a way to keep the chains moving.

And they have done so, with the help of a great many people.

The tide is turning.The sea can be a magical place for

many people. It has an ambiance that the finest restaurants would love to capture, if it was possible. It’s a place where you can lose yourself, where time stands still. The simplicity of the waves continuing to roll into shore, as they have done for eons, helps put life into perspective. And the message is simple — life continues to move forward, and the time we are given to enjoy it should be spent wisely.

Not long after the accident in 2011, families of the boys gathered on the beach in Longport — sort of their own little safe harbor — and spent time grieving, remembering, hugging, and just being there for each other.

In the four years since, the crowd every August has grown into the hun-dreds and now there is a Paddle Out event. A brief memorial every summer on the open sea for boys who spent their lives near it. And with each year that passes by there is a little bit less grieving and a little bit more celebra-tion, a few more smiles and a few less tears. As Ted Khoury, father of Dean, explained, it is a simple way for people — anyone who has lost some-one close to their heart — to gather, remember and celebrate the lives of those loved and lost. As Ted put it, “grieving is mandatory. Suffering is optional.”

The tide is turning. There still is plenty of grief to deal with for the families involved. But, hopefully, with each passing year the story will continue to branch out and continue to give the ones it reaches the hope for a better tomorrow. Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays

Strength, from page 22


(Dr. Brian Sokalsky, DO, is at the helm of Jersey Shore Sports Medicine in Ocean City and is a board certified family physician with special training in sports medicine. Once per month, Glory Days Maga-zine publisher Dave O’Sullivan will talk with Dr. So-kalsky about various sports injuries, treatments and prevention methods.)

For young athletes, stepping up to the high school level is not easy. The demands are higher, the work-outs more intense, and there is more strain on grow-ing and developing bodies.

For incoming freshman, the level of physical activ-ity involved in high school fall sports such as soccer, field hockey, cross country and football can be a little bit of a shock to the body.

“Parents should keep a close eye on their son or daughter and look for signs if they are overwork-ing themselves or signs of overuse types of injuries. Ideally, at this point, they would have some kind of conditioning program over the summer, whether it is something the coaches gave them to do on their own or a program you find at some of the local gyms like Athlete’s Arbor or the Bullpen over in Egg Harbor Township,” Sokalsky said. “But if they haven’t been doing that, they are kind of at the mercy of the sched-ule of the coaches and it’s a matter of keeping an eye on them over-doing it.”

Sokalsky said a factor in some overuse injuries isn’t necessarily extended overuse over time, but rather overuse during a specific time frame. For instance, a practice that includes a lot of condi-tioning is stressing the body, as athletes not only are performing drills to improve their technique, but also working in conditioning drills during the same practice.

“The repetitive nature and the constant use com-bined with the drill work where I see the injuries, rather than that explosive, traumatic type of injury such as a hamstring pull,” Sokalsky said. “Over the course of the first week or two they are running a lot every day and going from drill to drill. It adds

up over the first couple of weeks when they don’t have the kind of rest they would normally have a day or two after a game. But if an athlete is proper-ly prepared for the stress of the workouts through travel ball or a training program, they should be fine.”

When dealing with freshmen, what can make it tough for a coach to gauge the right amount of training is the fact that at that age, size and strength are so varied.

“At that age, there is a lot of variability from athlete to athlete, for both boys and girls, in terms of where they are in their development. Some kids at age 14 look like men while some look like they still have a lot of growing to do and haven’t de-veloped as much muscle mass. There’s nothing uniform at that age, everyone sort of progresses at their own speed,” Sokalsky said. “For the most part, what we see is the overuse type of stuff, the stress fractures, shin splints, things like that. Par-ticularly for kids who are actively going through

growth spurts. They tend to be more tight in their tendons and they tend to suffer tendinitis and frac-tures more easily.”

Shin splints can be a major headache for cross country runners. High school cross country de-mands a heavy workload of mileage, something young legs might not necessarily be accustomed to.

“Shin splints are primarily an inflammation of the lining of the shin bone. It’s caused by overuse and tight muscles pulling on the lining of the bone. That’s what causes the inflammation and pain,” Sokalsky explained. “The freshmen who have nev-er run like this before, if they’ve done any running before high school it’s probably been only a couple of miles at a time. To suddenly increase their mile-age so drastically, those are the ones who are par-ticularly susceptible to those types of injuries.”

Sokalsky said that, generally speaking, when an athlete gets to be a junior and senior, he or she has gotten used to what it takes to get physically prepared for their chosen sport. It’s the younger athletes who may have a harder time adapting and be at a higher risk of injury.

“Where we tend to see injuries isn’t at the high lev-el of varsity, but more the kids who are just getting into high school or the JV/marginal varsity player who is just playing a sport just to play it and it’s not something they are playing year-round. They go out and do everything that everyone else is doing without any pre-conditioning and they tend to get tendinitis and overuse injuries because their bodies just aren’t used to it,” Sokalsky said. “This is the time of year when everybody is trying to make an impression on the coaches, so nobody wants to miss a practice or a workout. It’s hard to treat an overuse injury whose primary treatment is rest when the athlete doesn’t want to rest because they don’t want to lose their spot on the team. So that is the most difficult thing, try-ing to heal them without them missing an extended period of time.”

609-545-8553Dr. BRIAN SOKALSKYn B.S., exercise science, Rutgers Universityn D.O., University of Medicine and Dentistry NJn Board certified family physiciann Atlantic City High School graduate

Be your bestHigh school sports a transition for younger athletes


learn from it.”Gillian said the coaches don’t have

to worry about the players ever forget-ting their experiences the last couple of summers.

“It was amazing. I don’t think any of us will ever forget this. It was a great experience for the summer and it re-ally made this summer awesome,” she said. “I think that I will remember just hanging out with everybody the most. We had as much fun off the field as we had on the field. It was a really great experience.”

Toner said what he really likes about the Little League programs are the way local communities rally around teams that advance to district, state and re-gional tournaments. It’s the kind of experience that can’t be matched by specialized travel teams, he said.

“The community aspect of Little League I think is what makes it really special. These kids have so many op-portunities now with travel ball and then at their high school. But the com-munity aspect of Little League and how the community came together, all the support we received from the com-munity, that was just outstanding. And I think the girls really understood that.

They would see the Press articles and they would see the coverage that they were getting on local radio stations and in social media. They understand that a lot of people were following them,” Toner said. “When you get back to town and you are walking around, or at a local restaurant, and somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, congratula-tions on your run, we were following you and really cheering for you,’ that means a lot to these girls and I think it’s something they have come to ap-preciate. They really do understand the impact they do have on the local com-munity and I think it really does matter to them. They wanted to perform well, and they did, and it was fun to watch.”Contact Dave O’Sullivan:[email protected];on Twitter @GDsullysays

Summer, from page 19 The playersMackenzie Brennan,Olivia Goff, Faith Hegh,Gabby Monzo, GillianMcCarthy, Shannon Bennett, Jessie Higbee, Lauren Toner, Mary McLaughlin, Gabbi Hendri, Megan McManus, Ava Zanaras


Snapshots/Atlantic Shore Babe Ruth baseball


Snapshots/Mainland Memorial Paddle Out

2015 · Sully keeps you informed on scores and higlights from games he covers, and also posts his...

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