Kearny's BJ Josko looking over a pitch during one of his two walks that helped him reach base three times and knock in a run. 
WAYNE - In a season full of dark clouds, rain delays and puddles around second base, the Kearny baseball team is used to waiting out the weather. In fact, the Kardinals have come to see precipitation as sort of a good luck charm.

So when the start of Friday's North 1, Group 4 state sectional final was delayed at the start and then again shortly after it began, the Kardinals felt right at home huddling in the dugout at William Paterson University. 

"It seems like we've had rain all year long. We had five rainouts and we've had rainouts rained out," said Kearny head coach Jim Sickinger. "I told the kids when it got cloudy today maybe that was what we needed to get over the top." 


Kearny's Jairo Mendez allowed five hits and two earned runs to push his second record to 6-1. 

But the experience that counted the most for Kearny is having been this far in the playoffs three times in the last four years. The Kardinals made less mistakes and kept their emotions in check a little better than the opposition, that being Ridgewood, which was making its first appearance in a section final since 1984 and looking for its first title since 1970. 

Kearny (20-2) took advantage of seven Ridgewood errors and got seven strong innings from starting pitcher Jairo Mendez on its way to a 5-3 victory that gave the Kardinals their second sectional title in the last three years. 

After allowing two hits and two runs in the opening inning, Mendez allowed just three hits and one unearned run the rest of the way. He walked one and struck out six to improve to 6-1 on the season and pitched his team in the Group 4 semifinals against the winner of the North 2 final between Morristown and Livingston. 


Without his best stuff, Ridgewood's Brian Farell battled threw five innings and allowed just two earned runs. 

"I knew my team was going to pick me up in the beginning because there was a lot of game left," said Mendez, a senior, who threw 110 pitches in a complete game. "I've been to the section final in three of my four years of high school. Our team has been together since sophomore year, we've been well coached and we knew what to expect coming in here." 

Ridgewood, the 13th seed, had knocked off two other Hudson County teams -- top seeded Memorial and defending champion Bayonne -- on its way to the final and took the lead in its first at bat when Chris Heisel and Mike Doody hit back-to-back singles and both came around to score. Heisel plated the game's first run on a Bill Christopher fielder's choice and Brian Farell knocked in Doody with a sacrifice fly. 

It was the bottom of order that put Kearny in front in the bottom of the second. Mike Landi and Travis Bubet singled to open the inning and No. 9 hitter Ryan Roemer drew a walk to load the bases with no outs. A walk to BJ Josko drove in the Kards' first run, Joe Socci drove in the second with a fielder's choice and when the attempt to get Socci at first sailed wide, Bubet came around to give Kearny its first lead, 3-2. 


Ridgewood's Ben Moscarello scored in the top of the third to tie the game at 3. 

Farell, the Ridgewood starter, admitted he did not have his best stuff, but the lefty kept his cool and his team in the game. He walked three, struck out five and allowed just two earned runs in his five innings. He also pitched out of a no out, bases loaded jam in the bottom of the sixth without a run scoring. 

"I give their lefty (Farell) credit. He did not have much of a curveball today, but he battled," said Sickinger, who is in his eighth season as the Kearny head coach." He pitched out of a couple of bases loaded jams giving up minimal damage. They are a scrappy team." 

The Maroons tied the game in the third when Frank Aversa reached on an error that allowed Ben Moscarello to score, but Ridgewood managed just one hit the rest of the way. Kearny took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning with an unearned run after a dropped flyball and an over throw to the infield and padded it in the bottom of the sixth when another error allowed Bubet to score from second after Roemer laid down a bunt. 


Travis Bubet scored three of Kearny's five runs hitting out of the No. 8 spot. 

The loss doesn't diminish Ridgewood's run to the final, but that the Maroons did not play their best game is the part that was disappointing to head coach Brian Quirk. 

"We did not play well enough to win. It was not our day," said Quirk, who just finished his second season as the Maroons' head coach and will have five starters back when he begins his third in 2004. "To put a finger on it today, I think it might have been a little big game jitters. We just didn't play as well we felt we should have been able to play." 

Kearny, on the other hand, now has a section title in hand and at least one game left in its season. Two more wins would make the Kardinals one of only six teams in the state that will finish the season on a high note. Hugh McDonald will get the ball for Kearny in the Group 4 semifinals on Tuesday at Northern Valley/Demarest. 

"We always look at it as taking one step at a time," said Sickinger, whose team last won a section title in 2000. "This is a good bunch of kids and they don't look any farther ahead then one game."