SJ sportsweekly 061219

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE SJ POWER POLL .................2 PLAYER OF THE WEEK .....6

Meet Paul VI‘s twotime state champ PAGE 4

www.southjerseysportsweekly.com

JUNe 12-18, 2019

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Eastern celebrates championship season A lopsided, season-opening loss didn’t define the Vikings. Instead, it was the composure and character they showed in the win-or-go-home postseason. By RYAN LAWRENCE Sports Editor

Even with one more, very important game looming on its schedule as it went about practice last week, it’s fair to say Eastern Regional High School’s baseball team is ending the season better than it started it. “We have a lot of work to do,” longtime Eastern coach Rob Christ said back on April 1, when the Vikings opened the 2019 season with a 12-0 loss at Bishop Eustace. “We have a long way to go.” But one game isn’t a fair representative of what a team can accomplish, especially one game at the beginning of a season, before a group of athletes come together as one and before a coach understands just what he has at his disposal. Any team that can endure the grueling Olympic Conference American Division schedule in April and May and live to be standing in the NJSIAA playoffs in June is certainly doing something right. Despite a forgettable Day One, Eastern had put together an unforgettable season as it was on the cusp of the Group 4 state championship game last weekend. “There are only eight public schools that play on the last day, so that’s heady stuff,” Christ said two days after the team advanced to the state finals with a 1-0 win over Manalapan. “I was talking to the kids today that

RYAN LAWRENCE/South Jersey Sports Weekly eastern celebrates with the trophy following the school’s 7-2 win over Cherry hill east in the south Jersey group 4 championship game on May 31. my mindset as a coach and their mindset as a team is that you should never be satisfied. … It’s never enough until we are a champion. Right now the mindset is we have one goal and one purpose and we have to find out how to make it come to fruition.”

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The Vikings reached that plateau in 2013. The fact that they were in position to collect a state title yet again, in the largest group in the state, for the second time in seven years, is a testament to the program please see eAsterN, page 5


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