The Nutley baseball team enters the 2025 season with a new division, a massive chip on its shoulder, and several new faces.
The first two are a product of an uncharacteristic 5-19 season for the Maroon Raiders. But even with seven sophomores set for big roles, the expectations remain high for Nutley in the more forgiving, yet still challenging SEC Liberty Division.
“We’re hanging our hats on our starting pitching,” Puzio said. “That’s going to be a big determining factor of how successful we’re going to be as a team this year.”
Puzio believes the success of this season will be based on a pitching staff that is deeper than it has been in recent memory.
Leading that staff is senior Drew Slomkowski, a Seton Hall commit. Injuries limited Slomkowski to just 15.2 innings a year ago, but with its ace fully healthy, Nutley knows it can compete with anyone in the state when he’s on the mound.
“When Drew’s pitching we got a shot, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing, where we’re playing,” said Puzio of Slomkowski, who had a 1.79 ERA. “When he’s on the mound, if he’s on and he’s doing what he needs to do and can perform like he can, we have a shot against anybody.”
Slotted behind Slomkowski are senior Chris Suriani (4.50 ERA, 28 strikeouts in 28 innings) and junior Nick Gaccione (4.38 ERA in 30.1 innings). Sophomores Dominic Saladino, Andrew Raboy and Kennan Bilotta are also set to see starts for Nutley. Ryan Pessoa, a senior, juniors P.J. Balsamo and Matt Dudek, and sophomore Sean Fealey could all see meaningful innings out of the bullpen as well.
This talented core of sophomores are also sure to make their presence felt throughout the diamond. A trio of sophomores are currently set to start in the outfield with Raboy in left field, Saladino in center field and Jackson Poole in right field.
“They all can fly and they’re all pretty above average when it comes to outfield defense,” Puzio said. “I think there’s a bright future for these guys.”
Balsamo and Gaccione could also see time in the outfield.
The trio of sophomores allow senior Keith Jiratatprosat, who hit .333 with a team-best 13 RBI to move over to first base, a position that Slomkowski could see some time at as well.
Senior Nick Polumbo, who hit .316 a year ago, is a returning starter at second base, where he is one of the county’s better defenders. Junior Eugenio Roman, who started at third base a year ago, moves over to shortstop.
Sophomore Gabriel Rodrigues and senior Benjamin McNeil are competing for the job at third base, with the other likely to see a lot of time at designated hitter.
Another sophomore, Anthony Straface, is a strong defender and sure to see time all over the infield.
Behind the plate, senior Santino Ruiz is a returning starter at catcher with juniors Christopher Kovacs and Charles Giachetti set to see time as well.
Nutley will be tested right out of the gate when it opens the season on Tuesday, April 1 against a Seton Hall Prep team that is the defending Greater Newark Tournament champions and ranked No. 4 in the NJ.com Preseason Top 20. Two days later, the Raiders will begin division play at Caldwell, which won the North 2, Group 2 title last spring.
Independent matchups with perennial Group 4 contenders Livingston, Ridgewood and Bayonne await later in the season. Such matchups are a reminder that while the division and the personnel may be new, the expectations aren’t.
“Our biggest thing right now is we’re going for the Liberty division title,” said Puzio. “We have a bunch of teams in this division that are challenging, but we’re going for it. We definitely want to have home games in the GNT and in the state tournaments. We want to be able to do some damage in both tournaments.”
Learn more about the writer ...
Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)