BARNEGAT, N.J. - Jason Groome remembers sitting at a desk in November wishing the baseball season would hurry up and get here. It was justifiable impatience given the potential of what lay ahead for the babyface lefthander with the burly 6-foot-6 frame and a repertoire of pitches that make middle-aged men holding radar guns salivate.
"And then it finally came, and now it's almost gone," the 17-year-old pitcher from Barnegat High School said after his final appearance on his home field Monday afternoon.
The season actually did end for Groome and his Barnegat teammates three days later when West Deptford took advantage of some sloppy defense to score two first-inning runs and shockingly eliminated the Bengals from the South Jersey Group 2 tournament with a 2-1 victory.