Two days after long-time head coach Bill Alvaro resigned due to personal reasons, the Minutemen won their first game under interim head coach Bob Kelly.
Washington Township High School baseball had to contend with a huge challenge before the first pitch of the 2018 season was even thrown.
Just prior to the start of the season, head coach Bill Alvaro resigned. Athletic director Kevin Murphy said the resignation was due to personal and family reasons. News of the resignation broke on March 29, just two days prior to the Minutemen’s first game of the regular season against Toms River High School North.
The district has appointed assistant coach Bob Kelly as the team’s interim head coach through mid-April. Murphy anticipates a varsity head coach for the remainder of the season will be named at the Washington Township Board of Education meeting on April 16.
The change was a big one for the baseball program, as Alvaro had been the head coach for the previous 16 seasons and helped coach the team to a Group IV state championship in 2007. However, Kelly is a familiar face within the program. Kelly joined Washington Township as an assistant in 2010 and has served as the head coach for JV and an assistant varsity coach. Kelly also has experience as a head coach at the varsity level, having spent seven seasons at the helm for Burlington City High School prior to his arrival at Washington Township.
Kelly treated Alvaro’s resignation as just another challenge for the Minutemen to face early on this season. Washington Township entered the 2018 season with high hopes of being a contender in South Jersey Group IV after winning 17 games last year.
“We talked about things like adversity and how sometimes life throws you a curveball,” Kelly said.
“We could either be sad and feel sorry for ourselves or step up and fight,” he added.
As JV head coach, Kelly has coached most of the players within the program at some point during their high school career. He believes this familiarity helped the players prepare for the season’s first game.
“We didn’t miss a beat,” Kelly said. “We just came out and did our thing. We had a very good practice on Friday before our opening game on Saturday.”
“I like to coach with a lot of energy,” Kelly added. “I brought that to our practice and the kids responded.”
Even under normal circumstances, Washington Township’s opening game was going to be tough as the Minutemen made a bus trip of more than an hour to Toms River to play a strong Toms River North team. Despite the challenges the team faced throughout the week, the Minutemen prevailed in their first game, defeating Toms River North, 1–0, in 10 innings. Pitchers Eric Cartafalsa, Nick Hammer and Lorenzo Morello preserved the shutout for Washington Township.
As nice as it was for the Minutemen to pull out a win in their first game, Kelly believes the most important thing the team learned was how to push forward in the face of adversity.
“It was a good way for the kids to say we can be successful,” Kelly said of their opening day appearance. “We can’t lose sight of what we want.”
