Baseball: Komline pitches Bridgewater-Raritan to win in North 2 Group 4

SCOTCH PLAINS - Kellan Komline has pitched in a lot of big games in his career for Bridgewater-Raritan. Tuesday, with the season on the line, the junior lefty stepped up again.

Komline threw six superb innings to lead the Panthers to a 5-2 win over Scotch Plains-Fanwood in a North 2 Group 4 first-round game.

No. 9 seeded B-R will play at No. 1 Ridge in Thursday’s sectional quarterfinal. The Red Devils (18-5) advanced with a 3-0 win over 16th-seeded Plainfield in Tuesday’s first round game.

That sets up an intriguing meeting Thursday. Bridgwater-Raritan (7-17), the defending state Group 4 champ, and Ridge split two regular season games last month.

First, they had to get by Scotch Plains-Fanwood (9-14), which beat the Panthers 6-4 on May 7 in 12 innings. Komline had 10 strikeouts and allowed just one hit in five shutout innings in that one.

Tuesday, he nearly mirrored the line, again whiffing 10 batters allowing two hits and two runs (one earned).

“He’s as consistent as the day is long,” B-R coach Max Newill said. “He didn’t have his best fastball today, but went to his changeup and it was great today.”

That’s the mark of a veteran.

“My fastball was really on (May 7), so I went to my change early in the count to keep them off balance and then I’d use my fastball later in counts,” said Komline, who now has a 0.51 ERA in 41 innings with 54 strikeouts.

Jack Lanum threw a perfect seventh inning with two strikeouts to close out the win.

This time, though, the Panthers didn’t let it get to extra innings by scoring three times in the top of the fifth to take a 3-2 lead keyed by Matt Lehberger’s two-run single.

Matt Cichocki had a two-out RBI hit in the fourth to close the gap to 2-1. JR Rosado drilled a solo home run to left in the seventh for an insurance run.

Scotch Plains-Fanwood jumped to a 2-0 lead after the first inning as Aiden Luccarelli had an RBI and Jack Sponheimer (double) and Joe LaRosa (hit by pitch) each scored. Ronnie Germinder added a single for the Raiders.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Baseball: Bridgewater-Raritan advances in North 2 Group 4