NEWARK — “Amazing,” said winning pitcher Julianna Santangelo, the junior right-hander also providing the game-winning hit.
“Unstoppable,” said second baseman Avital Kandel, who made all the plays in the field, including backing up for an assist that prevented Bound Brook High School from taking a two-run lead. Kandel, a sophomore, also drove in Jonathan Dayton High School’s first run to tie the game in the top of the sixth.
“Surreal,” said Jonathan Dayton softball head coach Dave Rennie, who in the second stint of this third season as head coach two years ago guided Jonathan Dayton to its first Union County Tournament championship and now in his fifth year led the Bulldogs to their first sectional state title and now their initial state crown.
Jonathan Dayton, the North 2, Group 1 champion, scored two runs in the top of the sixth to come back and beat Bound Brook, the Central Jersey, Group 1 champ, 2-1 in the Friday, June 12, Group 1 state championship game played on Mike Sheppard Sr. field at Ivy Hill Park.
Jonathan Dayton captured its first-ever state championship with 12 losses, the Bulldogs finished 19-12, won the game on Friday, June 12, and not only did Santangelo retire the home team Crusaders on 12 pitches in the bottom of the seventh, but she also set down the final 12 batters she faced after allowing the only hit she gave up.
Santangelo tossed a one-hitter that included nine strikeouts and three walks. Santangelo struck out the side in the second, struck out five batters in a row at one point, and was perfect in four of the seven innings she tossed.
“It’s hard to describe how she handles it,” Rennie said. “She has a way of working through the walks and the errors and grinding it out. She is focused and really wants it and again, today, saved her best pitching for the game’s final innings.”
Jonathan Dayton played errorless softball but had to overcome the first of the three walks Santangelo issued. Santangelo walked the first batter she faced in the bottom of the first and that batter came around to score following a sacrifice bunt that moved her to second, a wild pitch that put her on third and a sacrifice fly to center by the team’s best hitter that brought her home.
In the third, Jonathan Dayton had its leadoff batter reach on a walk and then No. 9 batter Jessica Miller connected on the hardest-hit ball of the game up until that point when she lined a shot to center. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, it resulted in an 8-3 lineout double play.
Jonathan Dayton’s next batter, leadoff hitter Aubrie Cantagallo, hit a shot down the right field line that went for a standup triple. Lila Carroll followed with a pop-up to short to end the threat, but Jonathan Dayton proved that it was starting to hit the Bound Brook pitcher pretty well.
Kandel led off the top of the fourth with a triple down the left field line that fell right in front of the left fielder. It was hit high enough for Kandel to get all the way to third. Santangelo then walked to put runners on the corners with still nobody out.
Jonathan Dayton then ran into some bad luck again when Carolyn Cantagallo hit a shot to third that the third baseman gloved and then touched the bag for another Bound Brook double play, the second of three the Somerset County squad pulled off.
Rachael Gurczeski, who drove in the only Bound Brook run on her sacrifice fly to center in the first, led off the bottom of the fourth with what would be her team’s only hit, a double to the left-center field fence. Santangelo bounced back by getting the next batter to ground out to second, the one after that to pop up a bunt to the catcher and the one after that to ground out to second.
While Bound Brook took advantage of a leadoff walk to score its lone run in the bottom of the first, Jonathan Dayton took advantage of Bound Brook’s second error leading off the top of the sixth. Carroll hit a fly ball to right-center that the Bound Brook center fielder moved over a bit to her right to catch, but dropped. Kandel then drove a pitch to the left-center field fence for an RBI-double that brought home Carroll to tie the game at 1-1. Santangelo followed with an opposite-field RBI-single to right that plated Kandel and all of a sudden, after not scoring in their first five at-bats, Jonathan Dayton had the lead for the first time at 2-1 in the sixth.
The Bulldogs were now six outs away from making program history.
Santangelo halted Bound Brook on a strikeout, a ground out and a fly ball in the sixth.
Santangelo then produced the game’s final three outs in order in the bottom of the seventh on a ground out, her eighth strikeout and her ninth strikeout, fanning the girl she walked to lead off the top of the first swinging.
Santangelo had one strikeout in the first, three in the second, one in the third, one in the fifth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh.
With two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the sixth, Santangelo was able to retire Gurczeski on a fly ball to center. She threw inside on a 1-0 count and jammed Gurtczeski, who was capable of tying the game at that point with a home run.
“I wanted to do something different there, so I threw her an inside rise,” Santangelo said.
Jonathan Dayton lost its first game at Arthur L. Johnson High School, 10-0, on Wednesday, April 1. The Bulldogs were then 5-9 on Friday, April 24, after losing at home to Scotch Plains–Fanwood High School, 2-0.
That’s not the trajectory most teams take to eventually winning a state championship.
“After we lost to Johnson, we then came back to beat Governor Livingston in our next game and we had not beaten them in like five years,” Santangelo said. “That set the tone.”
“Team chemistry and trusting each other more was a big part of our success,” Kandel said.
“When we lost four in a row to four really good Union County schools to fall to 5-9, I felt we were as good as a 5-9 team could be at that point,” Rennie said. “We then took off from there and ended up going 14-3 the rest of the way.”
After the 5-9, 14-game start, Jonathan Dayton won six straight before falling to eventual first-time UCT champion Summit in the UCT quarterfinals. The only other losses the rest of the way were to Morris County schools Morristown and Morris Catholic.
“This game was a microcosm of our season,” said Rennie, who was assisted by first base coach Caitlin Scaturo, who starred at Roselle Park High School before graduating in 2016, and dugout mentor Kevin Schultz. “We battled, hit the ball right at people, defended the ball and picked each other up all year long.
“It was such joy to coach them this season no matter how it ended.”
2026 Softball Group 1 State Championship Game on Mike Sheppard Sr. Field at Ivy Hill Park
N2-Jonathan Dayton (19-12) 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 – 2 5 0
CJ-Bound Brook (16-13) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 1 1 2
WP: Julianna Santangelo, junior right-hander.
LP: Isabella Marusiak, senior right-hander.
Photos by JR Parachini
