ELIZABETH/BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ — One program broke on through by slaying the dragon and then winning for the first time in a very long time.
The other won again, but managed to win in a manner it had never done before.
The Elizabeth High School girls basketball team and the Governor Livingston High School baseball squad made the year 2024 a special one, when it came to conquering the odds.
The Elizabeth girls basketball team reached the Union County Tournament final for the first time since 2008 and then captured the championship for the first time since 1997 and for the fourth time overall last February.
Governor Livingston’s baseball team won the Union County Tournament for the fourth time in mid-May and then, in early June, won the Group 2 state championship for the fourth time and, for the first time, at Mercer County Park’s DeMeo Baseball Field in Hamilton. For the very first time, the Highlanders won county and state championships in the same season.
The Elizabeth girls basketball team saw a much more challenging schedule for the 2023-2024 season, since it moved back up to the Union County Conference’s Watchung Division. The year before, the Minutemen started 20-0 before they lost and, along the way, captured the UCC’s Mountain Division crown outright at 12-1.
Elizabeth would close its 2022-2023 season at 23-3 with first-year head coach Chrystal Rinehold, advancing to the UCT semifinals and the North 2, Group 4 quarterfinals. The Minutemen were crushed by Westfield High School, 71-38, in the UCT semis, however, and then lost to Scotch Plains–Fanwood High School, 57-50, at home to end the season in a sectional quarterfinal.
Elizabeth began its 2023-2024 season also at home against Scotch Plains–Fanwood and fell, 54-39, in UCC-Watching Division play. There would be no 20-0 start this time.
Elizabeth rebounded to win 10 of its next 13 games, however, before falling to New Providence and Westfield high schools in back-to-back Watchung Division games, both by double digits. Elizabeth did edge Westfield by two points at home in its first meeting, but lost at home to New Providence by eight at home.
If Elizabeth was going to do any damage in the UCT, it was going to have to be better than teams such as New Providence and Westfield.
When UCT play began, fourth-seeded Elizabeth edged 13th-seeded Union Catholic High School, 55-52, at home and then at Arthur L. Johnson High School ousted fifth-seeded Scotch Plains–Fanwood by not much more, 57-53. Back at Arthur L. Johnson, it was to be the Minutemen facing top-seeded and two-time defending champion New Providence in the semifinals.
New Providence, which defeated Elizabeth twice in two tries in Watchung Division play, was seeking a three-peat. In 2022, the Pioneers won the UCT for only the second time and for the first time since 1990. Elizabeth won its first three titles in three-peat fashion, capturing its only previous crowns in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
So both programs were out to capture a fourth UCT title. More importantly, Elizabeth wanted to prove that it belonged after losing twice to New Providence and after the year before getting smoked in the UCT semifinals by Westfield.
As it turned out, Elizabeth proved to be more than just up to the task of proving that it could hang with New Providence.
With the game tied going into the fourth quarter, the Minutemen found a way to not let history repeat itself.
“At the half, we talked about getting back to our plan and began to spread the floor in the second half and concentrate on not letting their best players beat us,” Rinehold said.
Jah’nae Lembrick led Elizabeth with 23 points, with Alexandra Koon next with 15. The Minutemen won the fourth quarter by eight points to eliminate New Providence, 64-56.
“Lembrick was huge for us and Koon made some big three-pointers,” Rinehold said.
Against second-seeded Cranford High School in the UCT final at Kean University’s Harwood Arena in Union, with Cranford seeking its first crown since 2016, Elizabeth outscored the Cougars by four in the fourth quarter to force OT and then won the extra session by two points for a 59-57 triumph and the championship.
“This is a feeling I’m never going to forget and neither will our girls,” Rinehold said.
Koon led Elizabeth with 21 points and 12 rebounds and Dynasty Chandler with five steals.
Not only did the Minutemen prove that they belonged, but they went all the way to winning the championship for the first time in 27 years.
Elizabeth almost won another title, as the Minutemen advanced all the way to the North 2, Group 4 final this time, falling at Hillsborough High School, 59-46, in the championship game.
Elizabeth went 19-10 overall and 5-7 in the Watchung Division for 2023-2024 and was able to produce another banner for its gymnasium in Elizabeth.
Governor Livingston’s baseball field up on the hill at its Berkeley Heights school is filled with banners recognizing division, county and state championships the Highlanders have won in the past. The Highlanders added two more in 2024.
The Highlanders began 2024 with a 7-0 record before they were beaten, falling at home to Summit High School, 11-10, in Watchung Division play. Governor Livingston was 14-3 when the UCT began, as the Highlanders earned the No. 2 seed and Westfield, a team they split with in Watchung Division play, was awarded the top seed.
Westfield was seeking its first UCT crown since 2017 and Governor Livingston its first since 2021. Two-time defending champion Cranford was the fifth seed. When Cranford repeated as champions in 2023, the Cougars defeated Governor Livingston 1-0 in the final at Kean, with the game’s lone run produced in the bottom of the seventh.
Governor Livingston dominated its first three UCT foes, blanking Linden, 9-0, in the first round at home and then rolling past Jonathan Dayton High School, 16-5, also at home, in the quarterfinals. At Arthur L. Johnson, Governor Livingston posted another convincing shutout, downing Scotch Plains–Fanwood, 10-0.
Scotch Plains–Fanwood ended up winning the Watchung Division at 9-3, edging second-place Governor Livingston, which finished 9-4 in division play. Governor Livingston and Scotch Plains–Fanwood split their two Watchung Division clashes.
In the UCT final at Kean University, Governor Livingston led Westfield 10-0, going into the bottom of the seventh. Up until that point, the Highlanders outscored their four UCT foes by an impressive 45-5 margin. To say that Westfield did not give up and go easy into the night in the bottom of the seventh would be the understatement of the 2024 Union County baseball season.
Before relief pitcher Anthony DeNora retired the game’s final batter on a strikeout swinging, Westfield scored eight runs and had two more runners on base. Governor Livingston held on, in every sense of the term, for a 10-8 victory and its fourth UCT crown.
“In the seventh inning, they were hitting the ball in the wrong spots,” said winning pitcher Matt Diskin, who took a four-hit shutout into the seventh before leaving the mound without getting an out and the scoreboard now reading 10-5.
Diskin still earned the mound victory, despite yielding seven earned runs.
“I had faith in our other pitchers and still felt we were going to win,” Diskin said. “This is the best feeling in the world. We’re brothers and family.”
After Governor Livingston defeated Holmdel High School, 7-6; Nottingham High School, 5-4; Bordentown Regional High School, 2-0; and Delran High School, 9-3; all at home, to capture Central Jersey, Group 2 for the first time since 2017, the Highlanders then won at South Jersey, Group 2 champ Seneca High School, 10-2, to reach the Group 2 state championship game for the first time since last winning it in 2015.
For the first time, the Highlanders would be playing for a state championship in Hamilton. In 1999, the Highlanders won in East Brunswick and, in 2011 and 2015, in Toms River.
No Union County team had won a state title in Hamilton since the state finals were moved there in 2018. Westfield lost in the Group 4 final in 2018, New Providence in the Group 1 finals in 2021 and 2022; and Cranford in the Group 3 final in 2022.
Diskin started for the Highlanders again and, this time, did not allow a run for all seven innings. On his way to pitch collegiately at Stetson University in Florida, after his senior season at Governor Livingston in 2025, this time Diskin tossed a three-hit shutout that included 10 strikeouts and only two walks, as Governor Livingston went on to beat North 1, Group 2 champ Pascack Valley High School, 3-0, in the Group 2 final.
Governor Livingston, for the first time in nine years, was a state champion. The Highlanders won Group 2 for the fourth time overall and for the first time since 2015. Governor Livingston became the first team from Union County to win a state championship in Hamilton.
Diskin helped his cause by blasting a solo home run over the left field fence for an important insurance run in the bottom of the fourth.
The game-winning hit was produced by senior designated hitter Matthew Kosuda, who belted a two-run homer in the bottom of the third that hit the top of the left field fence just to the right of the 318 sign and bounced over. Dylan Gardner, Governor Livingston’s No. 9 batter, led off the inning with a single down the left field line and, two outs later, scored ahead of Kosuda on Kosuda’s round-tripper.
“This is an unbelievable feeling that I really can’t express,” Kosuda said.
Gardner, Governor Livingston’s center fielder, also caught the game’s final out.
Governor Livingston produced four hits, the first a single in the first inning by leadoff batter Zach Geertsma. One of the top shortstops in the state as a junior for 2025, Geertsma has verbally committed to playing in college at the University of Virginia.
“This is the best feeling in the world,” Diskin said.
Governor Livingston finished 28-5 overall and tied the school record for most wins in a season at 28. The first Highlander team to win 28 games was the 2015 state championship squad that closed at 28-6.
Union County’s last two state championship teams in baseball were the 2024 and 2015 Governor Livingston Highlanders, winning Group 2 both of those seasons.
Yes, 2024 was indeed a very good year for both the Elizabeth girls basketball and Governor Livingston baseball teams.
Elizabeth Girls Basketball 2023-2024
Won the Union County Tournament for the first time since 1997, beating the top two seeds in the tournament, including two-time defending champion New Providence.
Governor Livingston Baseball 2024
Won county and state championships in the same season for the first time. Governor Livingston won the UCT for the first time since 2021 and Group 2 for the first time since 2015.
Photos Courtesy of Chrystal Rinehold and JR Parachini