UNION COUNTY — It’s been quite a three-year run for the Arthur L. Johnson and Jonathan Dayton high school softball teams.
Supplanting Cranford, Governor Livingston and Westfield high schools as the cream of the crop in Union County, the Crusaders and the Bulldogs managed to go on incredible runs the past three seasons as they were recognized among the best Group 2 and Group 1 schools in the state of New Jersey.
Arthur L. Johnson produced three straight 20-win seasons, going 20-12 in 2024 and 26-4 in both 2025 and 2026. After capturing the Central Jersey, Group 2 sectional state championship all three of those years, the Crusaders saw those seasons come to a conclusion in the Group 2 semifinals.
Arthur L. Johnson has also put together five straight winning seasons, including 12-10 in 2022 and 17-8 in 2023.
Jonathan Dayton has managed to finish above .500 the past four years, starting with a final record of 18-10 in 2023. The last three years, the Bulldogs have gone 22-7 in 2024, 15-11 in 2025 and 19-12 in 2026.
Jonathan Dayton won the Union County Tournament for the first time in 2024, and this year captured North 2, Group 1 and Group 1 championships for the very first time. In 2026, Jonathan Dayton, which was only 5-9 on April 25, was a sectional state champion and a state champion for the first time in program history.
Elizabeth Yanni, a four-year varsity starter for Johnson who wore No. 11 and for her career batted .387 with 14 home runs, 118 RBI and 139 hits, excelled one last time after the 2026 campaign came to a close.
For Yanni, it was an opportunity to play with some of the best seniors in the state for one final high school game before she gets ready to return to Ivy Hill Park this fall to begin her Seton Hall University women’s softball career.
The standout catcher for the South would deliver a double and score one of her team’s 10th-inning runs in a 12-4 loss to the North in the 16th NJ Pride’s Super 36 New Jersey North-South Senior All-Star Game played on Monday night, June 15, before a large crowd on hand on a beautiful cool and comfortable mid-June evening to cap the 2026 scholastic season, which, just a few days earlier, had seen the NJSIAA group state finals contested on the same Mike Sheppard Sr. Field.
The all-star event is a 10-inning game in order to help provide significant playing time for all the players involved.
“It’s an honor to play with and against some of the best players in New Jersey to cap what was a great senior year,” said the talented catcher for a three-time state sectional championship team for the Crusaders. “I love to compete and to be among these girls in this setting, where I will be playing in college, is just tremendous!”
As far as the game itself, key hits for the North were highlighted by Sofia Reisinger’s bases-clearing three-run triple to highlight a three-run second inning as the North took a 4-0 lead and then built on that with a run in the fifth and three more in the seventh to take an 8-0 advantage with back-to-back-to-back RBI singles from Cassidy Smith of Randolph High School, Sabrina Casola of Hanover Park High School and Jaylene Echeverry of St. Mary High School of Rutherford.
Meanwhile, superb starting pitching by Columbia’s Boston University-bound Clare Shupe, along with a couple of innings from Morris Catholic High School’s Reisinger to complement her huge hit and capped by more steady work in the circle by Watchung Hills Regional High School’s Riley Bobrowski, helped finish things off for the victorious North.
Meanwhile, in addition to a three-run 10th including a double and run scored by Arthur L. Johnson’s Yanni, the South’s first run came in the eighth inning on a booming solo home run hammered over the fence in straightaway center field by the team’s MVP, Jaelynn Nunez of Donovan Catholic High School.
Yanni’s senior season included a .356 batting average with four home runs, 29 RBI and 31 hits.
Arthur L. Johnson also repeated as the Union County Conference’s Watchung Division champion with an 11-1 league mark this year and reached the UCT championship game, falling to first-time champion Summit High School.
Jonathan Dayton won six in a row to get to 11-9 before falling to Summit in the UCT quarterfinals. The Bulldogs then split four regular season games before North 2, Group 1 play commenced.
In the section, Jonathan Dayton beat Belvidere, Glen Ridge and New Providence high schools at home and then went to perennial power Whippany Park High School and edged the Wildcats, 5-4, in Morris County to claim its first-ever sectional title. It’s extremely rare that a Union County softball team goes to Whippany Park and comes away with a victory.
Jonathan Dayton then won at North 1, Group 1 champion Indian Hills 1-0 in its Group 1 semifinal before coming back with two runs in the top of the sixth to top Central Jersey, Group 1 champ Bound Brook High School, 2-1, in the Group 1 state championship game, played at Ivy Hill Park at Seton Hall University, on Friday, June 12.
The Bulldogs were led on the mound in the championship game by junior right-hander Julianna Santangelo and in the field and at the plate by sophomore second baseman Avital Kandel. Santangelo drove in the winning run with an opposite field RBI-single to right, after Kandel tied the game with an RBI-double.
“We battled, hit the ball right at people, defended the ball and picked each other up all year long,” Jonathan Dayton head coach Davie Rennie said.
Jonathan Dayton’s 6-0 state tournament run featured four one-run victories, including the last three. The Bulldogs outscored the opposition 31-11.
“It was such a joy to coach them this season, no matter how it ended,” Rennie said.
Photos Courtesy of Steve Tober and JR Parachini
