The 46th Essex County Softball Tournament (ECT) is ready to go.
Mount St. Dominic is the top seed, and will seek a record 11th crown in 2024.
Currently, the Lions and Caldwell High have each won 10 championships. Both schools also claimed a ‘three-peat’, in the tourney. Caldwell won three straight from 1986-1988, and MSDA did it from 2019-2022. (There was no tournament played in 2020).
Cedar Grove, seeded third, is the defending champion, and has won six overall titles, while Livingston, the second seed, which last won the crown 11 years ago, has five county trophies.
Columbia, the fifth seed, will seek a first-ever ECT crown, to add to a state sectional championship it won in 2023. Rounding out the top eight seeds are fourth-seeded Caldwell, sixth-seeded Montclair, seventh-seeded West Essex and Verona, the eighth seed.
The semifinals and finals will once again be played at Ivy Hill Park, on the campus of Seton Hall University, with the semis on May 17, and the finals the following evening. The semis and finals have been played there since 2005.
There have been some dominant performances in the ECT.
Mount St. Dominic had won back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015, winning both championships in five innings, or less. Livingston had won the previous two crowns in 2012 and 2013, and the Lancers, at one point, had gone 48-1 against Essex County teams from 2012-2014. Mount St. Dominic and Cedar Grove have had similar dominant successes in the Super Essex Conference, and ultimately the ECT, from 2014-2022.
Cedar Grove and Livingston also appeared in the prestigious Tournament of Champions final, in 2019 and 2021 respectively. Ironically, neither school won the county title in ’19 and ’21. Just goes to show how difficult the ECT can be.
There have been some upsets along the way in the tournament.
In 2012, Newark Academy came from a double-digit seed to stun defending champion Nutley in the first round. The Minutemen, coached then by Sergio Rodriguez, made it to the semifinals, before losing to Mount St. Dominic. (Rodriguez is now the very successful head coach at Hanover Park. He led that program to a state championship and appearance in the now defunct Tournament of Champions).
In 2018, Newark Academy also made it to the semifinals, including an upset of West Essex in the quarters, in Rodriguez’s last season as head coach.
West Orange had a nice run in 2010, upsetting then 2-time champion Mount St. Dominic and making it to the semis, before Cedar Grove, the eventual champion, ended the Mountaineers’ hopes.
In 2016, Montclair made an incredible run to the finals, before losing to West Essex.
There have been some great games over the last decade in the semifinals.
Livingston and Nutley played a classic in 2011. Livingston sophomore righthander Jess Peslak struck out 14, but Kristen Mattia hit a 2-run homer in the fifth inning for Nutley, after Livingston had gained a 3-0 lead. The Lancers appeared to have it under control in the bottom of the seventh, especially after Peslak had a big ‘K’ for the second out, but Lauren Iradi hit a seeing-eye, two-out, two-run single as Nutley won, 4-3. A day later, Nutley captured the county final over MSDA, 3-0.
Nutley and Livingston also played two exciting semifinals in 2021 and 2022, with Nutley prevailing in both years.
The 2013 semifinal between Cedar Grove and Mount St. Dominic was also memorable, as MSDA’s Olivia Gemma hit an epic homer over the centerfield fence, in the sixth inning, to lead the Lions past the Panthers, after it appeared Cedar Grove had the game in hand.
Eight years ago, Montclair and Livingston played a tremendous semifinal, before a large crowd, with the Mounties winning, 6-4, marking Montclair’s first win over Livingston in six years.
Ciarah Minning of Montclair made one of the greatest catches in the tournament’s history, hauling in a long drive, over her head, in deep centerfield, against Livingston in the 2016 semifinals, in a Willie Mays-1954 World Series moment.
Seven years later, Livingston’s Allie Nankivell made an incredible over-the-fence catch in an ECT semifinal, versus Cedar Grove.
And for pure recent drama, the 2012 and 2013 championship games between Mount St. Dominic and Livingston were as good as they got, with Livingston prevailing, 2-0, and 5-4. It’s not often that teams meet in back-to-back years, in a final. Cedar Grove and MSDA played in the 2008 and 2009 finals, and again in 2018 and 2019, and Nutley faced MSDA in 2021 and 2022.
For a few years, the Essex County Tournament quarterfinals were all held at one site, on one day. Bloomfield’s Pulaski Park hosted the event and later, it was in Verona. Currently, the quarterfinals are back to being played at the higher seed’s home field.
Here are some tid-bits to get you ready for this year’s tournament.
FACTS AND FIGURES
This is the 46th ECT. Here are some facts and figures over the past 45 tourneys.
1-Caldwell won the first championship in 1978, defeating Bloomfield, 2-1. The Chiefs and Mount St. Dominic have the most championships with 10 each. Caldwell boasts the best record in championship games, with a 10-1 record.
2-Belleville appeared in nine county finals during the 1980s, winning three championships, including back-to-back titles in 1982 and ’83. The Bucs made it to eight straight finals, from 1982-89, which remains an ECT record. Belleville also won a county title in 1989 and appeared in the 1998 and ’99 final.
3-Belleville’s 12 appearances in the finals are second most to Mount St. Dominic, which has been in 19 championship games.
4- Mount St. Dominic and Caldwell have each won 10 titles, Cedar Grove, the defending champ, has six crowns, Livingston has won five and West Essex has four. Only nine schools have won titles in the first 45 tournaments, with Belleville and Bloomfield winning three a piece and MKA and Nutley, capturing two each.
5-Livingston pitcher Jess Peslak had three of the most dominant performances in the ECT semis in recent memory. In 2011, she struck out 14, but lost in the seventh inning to Nutley, 4-3. The following year, she fanned 17 in a 9-0 victory against West Essex and in 2013, she spun a five-inning, no-hitter, with 12 strikeouts, as the Lancers defeated Bloomfield, 12-0. Peslak was 2-0 in county finals.
6-Mount St. Dominic pitcher Kelsey Oh led her team to a rare three championships, in 2014, 2015 and 2017, all in incredibly dominant fashion. In her final ECT game in 2017, Oh struck out 14 and scattered five hits in a 3-0 win over West Essex. Oh went on to a tremendous collegiate career at the University of South Carolina.
7-Cedar Grove pitcher Mia Faieta led her team to the title in 2018 and the finals, a year later. In 1984, Mia’s mother, the former Fran Ricciardi, was a big part of Cedar Grove’s title team, which upset two-time defending champ, Belleville, 8-5, in the title game.
One of Fran’s teammates on that 1984 team was Kim Fitzgerald. In 2010, Kim’s daughter, Briana Weinstein, starred on coach Rob Stern’s team, which won Cedar Grove’s first county championship since ’84, defeating West Essex, 2-0. Kim and Brianna were both second basemen for the Panthers.
8-Livingston’s Kylie McLaughlin, hit a rare inside-the-park homer at Ivy Hill Park in the 2013 semifinal against Bloomfield. She led off the bottom of the first with a shot that hit the center field fence and bounced past a Bloomfield outfielder, as the speedy lefty batter rounded the bases.
9-Cedar Grove was the first team to repeat as champion, doing so in 1980. At that time, the Panthers were led by pitcher Laurel Van Der May, while its head coach was her brother, Ray, who, after a successful tenure at Seton Hall University, returned to the helm at Cedar Grove in 2013 and led the ’14 Panthers back to the finals. Ray retired as coach following the 2014 season.
10-Cedar Grove (1979-80), Belleville (1982-83), Caldwell (3-peat from 1986-1988, 1990-91 and again 2004-05), West Essex (1997-98), Bloomfield (1999-2000), Montclair Kimberley Academy (2001-2002), Mount St. Dominic (2008-09, 2014-2015 and 3-peat from 2019-2022) and Livingston (2012-2013) are the schools which have won back-to-back titles.
11-Former Mount St. Dominic head coach Lorenzo Sozio has won the most championships, with nine, from 1996-2021. Sozio also won his 600th career game in 2021. Caldwell coach Mike Teshkoyan and his late brother, Mark, put together eight championship teams, from 1987-2005.
12-Belleville-Caldwell (1986-88), Caldwell-Livingston (1990-91), Mount St. Dominic-Bloomfield (1995-96), Mount St. Dominic-Cedar Grove (2008-09 and 2018-2019), Mount St. Dominic-Livingston (2012-2013) and Mount St. Dominic-Nutley (2021-2022) are the championship game matchups which occurred in consecutive years.
13-Cedar Grove’s crowns in 1984 and 2010 represent the longest gap between titles for a school in the tourney’s history.
14-Nutley waited 18 years between championships. (1993-2011).
15-Belleville’s Carl Corino coached in 12 county finals, and led his team to the Final Four 16 times.
16-The highest scoring final occurred in 2015, with 19 runs scored. The second highest scoring final was in 1992 and 2016, with 14 runs scored in both of those finals. Cedar Grove and Belleville combined for 13 runs in the ’84 title game.
17-Only three of the first 45 championship games have gone into extra innings, with Belleville (1989), Mount St. Dominic (2003) and Caldwell (2005) all winning by 1-0 decisions. The 2003 game between Mount St. Dominic and Bloomfield went 11 innings, the longest final on record.
18-Caldwell had one of the most improbable wins, rallying from 2-0 down to stun Belleville, 3-2, in the 1987 final. Caldwell scored all three runs without a ball leaving the infield, in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Chiefs had a similar rally in the 2004 county final opposite MKA, once again coming back from 2-0 down in the seventh. Both of those games were played at Pulaski Park, in Bloomfield.
19-Luann Zullo is 3-0 as a head coach in the finals, and Rob Stern is 2-3 in the finals. Zullo and Stern are the only coaches to win crowns at two different schools. Zullo won a pair of championships at West Essex (1997-98) before leading her alma mater, Nutley, to the 2011 championship. Stern won the 2010 title with Cedar Grove and in 2022, with Mount St. Dominic.
20-Livingston coach Jason Daily is 3-0 in county finals, winning in 2006, 2012 and 2013. Daily’s teams have also been consistently in the Final Four, with recent appearances in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Daily has been head coach at Livingston since 2001.
21-Montclair Kimberley Academy is the only team to defeat Caldwell in a county final, doing so in 2002, 4-1, for its second straight title and last to date. Two years later, Caldwell turned the tables and beat MKA, 3-2.
22-Livingston and Belleville had quite a rivalry in the 1980s. The schools met three times in a county final (1982, ’85 and ’89), with Belleville winning twice. In 1982, Livingston rallied from 4-0 down to stun Belleville, 6-4, in a state sectional semifinal. Five days later, the two met again for the county championship and Belleville won, 8-0, for its first ECT crown.
A generation later, the two met in the quarterfinals of the 2001 county tournament, with Belleville prevailing by the mercy rule. A few weeks later, the teams met in the state sectionals, with Belleville winning a close 3-1 contest, en route to a sectional championship. The following year, Livingston went to Belleville in a sectional semifinal, and won, defeating the defending sectional champions. Livingston’s current head coach, Jason Daily, was in his second year as head coach in 2002.
23-It’s not often that sisters play against each other in a county tournament, but it happened in the 2011 championship game when Nutley, led by Eileen Purcell, defeated Mount St. Dominic, 3-0. The Mount’s junior catcher that year was Jamie Purcell, Eileen’s twin sister. The Purcells played four years of collegiate softball and were graduated with degrees in 2016.
24-From 1993-1997, the final score of the championship game was 2-1.
25-Mount St. Dominic’s four runs in the 2013 county final was the most by a team which didn’t win the title during this century.
26-Gina Capardi (Caldwell), Sammi Rothenberger (Livingston), Kristen Mattia (Nutley), Olivia Gemma (MSDA) and Madison Gemma of West Essex, Olivia’s sister, hit five of the more memorable homers in Ivy Hill history, since the field became the venue for the semis and finals in 2005.
Capardi christened the move to Ivy Hill in ’05, when she homered in the eighth inning for a stirring 1-0 win over Montclair in the championship game. Madison Gemma’s homer came in the finals, as West Essex pulled away from Montclair. The other three were hit in the semifinals. Rothenberger’s shot is still raved about, as the ball went into the trees in the 2013 semifinal. Mattia’s homer was a long 3-run blast as Nutley cut into a 3-0 lead against Livingston in 2011. Olivia Gemma’s 2-run homer helped Mount St. Dominic rally past Cedar Grove in the bottom of the sixth inning, in 2013.
27-Bloomfield coach Bob Mayer and Mount St. Dominic’s Lorenzo Sozio each won his 500th career game, all for one school, in 2016. Caldwell’s Mike Teshkoyan is first, all time, in county history with over 700 wins. Carl Corino of Belleville, who is retired, was the first in Essex County to reach 500, back in 2005. Corino was honored in April, 2016, by having the ball park at Belleville named after him.
Teshkoyan, Sozio, Mayer and Corino are the top four winningest coaches in Essex County history. A fifth member of the 500 club could happen in 2024. Livingston’s Jason Daily won his 400th career game, all with the Lancers, in 2023.
In 2002, Corino became the state’s all-time winningest high school softball coach, surpassing Clifton’s Rick LaDuke.
Livingston’s Jason Daily won his 400th career game, all with the Lancers, in 2023.
28-West Essex won its fourth county title and first in nine years in 2016. It was the second crown under head coach Andrea Mondadori-Llauget.
29-The Gemma family had its share of good memories in the county final, with seven straight appearances. Olivia Gemma played in four straight ECT finals, for Mount St. Dominic, and led her team to a title in 2014. Madison Gemma played in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 finals and led West Essex to a crown in 2016.
Olivia and Madison are the daughters of Angela and Mike Gemma. Both went on to attend Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, and have earned their degrees, after successful playing careers.
30-Cedar Grove and Livingston both ended as the number one public school softball teams in New Jersey, in 2019 and 2021, respectively, after reaching the Tournament of Champions final.
31-Cedar Grove and Mount St. Dominic have now met in the county final six times (2008, 2009, 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2023), the most renewed meeting in the history of the ECT. Mount St. Dominic has won four of the six meetings. The schools have also faced each other in the ECT semis, most recently in 2011 and 2013, with MSDA winning both.
32-Ava and Gia. Cedar Grove’s Ava Fernandez and Gia Fernandez have had their share of successes on the diamond. Ava, who was graduated in 2018 and went to play college ball at Springfield College, was a part of multiple championship Panther squads.
And now, Ava’s younger sister Gia, has been a part of an Essex County, state sectional and group championship team, in 2023, as a sophomore.
33-CK. Cedar Grove’s Cayce Kavakich, a sophomore, had an MVP effort in the 2023 Essex County final. She hit a 2-run homer in the top of the first inning (see below), then went on to pitch a shutout to lead Cedar Grove to its sixth county title, and first in five years.
34-Thank you, Coach “Jay”. As good a man as there is, West Essex’s long-time assistant softball coach Jason Ahmed has always been praised by head coach Andrea Mondadori-Llauget for his diligence and hard work in making West Essex one of the best softball programs in Essex County.
Ahmed’s coaching style spoke of a man who took his job seriously, but not that seriously. He always had a good rapport with his players, dating back 20 years. Mondadori-Llauget and Ahmed grew up and went to high school in Rutherford. They were hired in 2005 to take over the softball program at West Essex, and would eventually lead the Knights to a pair of Essex County championships, and multiple state sectional crowns.
As someone who always admired “Jay”, thanks for all the great memories over the years.
They don’t get any better than Jason Ahmed.
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