Three more outs. That’s all coach Sam Tropiano needed to advance his Bishop Eustace High School baseball team into the 2018 New Jersey Non-Public South A championship game.
He had just the pitcher to do it, too. Senior infielder Sky Duff had already been through similar situations the season before. He was an effective reliever perfectly suited to protect the 11-9 lead his team had rallied to build against rival St. Augustine in the semfinal on June 1.
“If we didn’t have a pitch count, we would have been state champions this year,’’ Tropiano said recently as he took a break from the summer camp he runs at the Pennsauken school.