After falling to Kean University in last season’s New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Tournament, Montclair State University baseball came into 2024 looking to do more damage, and for the most part, they accomplished that.
Offensively, Montclair State was a powerhouse yet again as they scored 312 runs, ranking second in the NJAC only behind Kean University.
From the mound, the Red Hawks were about as strong as any team in the conference with the fifth best earned run average (ERA) at 4.70. The top five programs in terms of ERA were separated by about half a run.
A huge contributor to that pitching staff was senior Jack Haveson. Haveson was dominant, going 7-1 and only giving up eight earned runs through 58 innings of work.
Graduate student infielder Sam Angelo, who was named a D3baseball.com ‘First Team All American’ a year ago, had similar numbers this season and finished second in the country among all of division three with 18 home runs.
The Red Hawks finished the season at 26-11 but dropped their final four games to NJAC competition, which kept them from returning to the tournament. It was a devastating end to what was an otherwise good season.
Montclair State needed to win just one of those games in order to clinch an NJAC Tournament berth. On April 25 and 26, Rutgers-Camden defeated Montclair State in back to back games with the total difference in runs only being four.
Last Saturday was the final chance for the Red Hawks to extend their season during a double header against The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).
Game one was full of offense as both teams exploded for a combined 17 runs through six innings with Montclair State ahead 10-7. TCNJ would go on to score six unanswered runs and win in extra innings 13-10.
The following game quickly became a rough one for Montclair State as TCNJ had an early 7-0 lead in the second inning and never looked back. The final was 14-3 and Montclair State’s season ended.
Montclair State is a much stronger team than they showed at the end. The end of this season is going to hurt, especially for the players who will not be returning next season. However, with Dave Lorber and the rest of the coaching staff still intact, the Red Hawks should be right back in the mix for next season.
