By Bill Alden

Adam Wijaya saved his best for last this spring as he helped the Hun School baseball team win its third straight state Prep A title.

The star third baseman produced a huge senior year, batting .452 with a team-high 28 hits as the Raiders went 15-6 on the way to the three-peat.

Looking to build on that progress, the Hamilton College-bound Wijaya joined the Princeton Post 218 American Legion team this summer.

“I was contacted by coach [Tommy] Parker and coach [Paul] Sumners about putting together a team they thought would be better than the previous years,” said Wijaya, noting the roster includes Hun teammates Chris Murdock and Thomas Ramsay along with Princeton Day School standouts Matt Nyce and Luke Franzoni and Princeton High stars Teddy Durbin, Paul Cooke, Jaedyn Paria, and Zack Yoelson. “I was really interested in coming together from nothing and trying to put together a team.”

Despite the influx of talent, the team struggled as it started 0-10. But last Wednesday, Post 218 produced a breakthrough, routing Ewing Post 314 14-0 to get into the win column.

“It was there all along, we just couldn’t put it together, we went into extra innings with different teams,” said Wijaya, who contributed an RBI in the victory.

“Finally, we were able to put it together and come up with a big win. Everything came together, the hits, the defense, and the pitching; it was great.”

While Princeton fell 12-0 to Allentown a day after the win over Ewing, Wijaya believes the squad is headed in the right direction.

“We know what we need to work on,” said Wijaya, who smacked a double in the loss to Allentown. “Coach Parker has been preaching the whole season about working together as a team and not focusing on yourself. That is what we are working towards.”

On Saturday, Post 218 put in some good work as it defeated Trenton Post 93/182 3-2 in the completion of a game suspended on June 5 and then topped Trenton 24-7 in the regularly-scheduled contest in improving to 3-11.

“We still have lot of games, it is a lot of opportunities,” said Wijaya, who will be looking to help keep Post 218 on the winning track as it hosts Allentown on June 27 and West Windsor-Plainsboro on June 28 before playing at South Brunswick Post 401 on June 29.

“We have just got to stick it to them first. The one thing we did in the Ewing game that we haven’t done all season is score in the first inning; that sets the tone for the rest of the game instead of trying to scrap home runs in the fifth and the sixth like we have been doing. If we do that, we will be good.”

As Wijaya looks ahead to his matriculation to Hamilton and joining its Division III program, he believes that competing for Post 218 will be good preparation for the jump to college baseball.

“The competition here is great; I think it is the best in the state that you are going to get in the summer,” said Wijaya.

“I am getting a lot of mental reps and seeing live pitching. Today we saw a kid (Brandon Gaul of Allentown) who is also playing in college. He was throwing it all over the strike zone, so he was great. We get some very elite pitchers, we get some other pitchers who are young kids. It is awesome.”