STAFF

Mike has been on the baseball field since he was 4 years old and continues now at 48 years old.  Mike was a 4-year high school baseball varsity player in California and a 4-year college baseball player.  Mike worked at Teels Baseball from 1999-2001 and Professional Baseball Instruction from 2001-2005.  He owned the NJ Renegades Baseball National Team beginning in 2006.  Mike worked as a baseball coach at Don Bosco Prep in 2006.  Mike coached the El Paso Diablos independent professional baseball team in 2012. He has now been coaching for 20 years.

Jim Walsh is one of the most highly regarded coaches in New Jersey. 

Presently, he is the head coach at Union City High School, where he led the team to their first Hudson County championship in school history in 2024.

Prior to that, Walsh coached as an assistant at Columbia University for 17 years.  Walsh joined the Columbia staff as an assistant after serving as the head baseball coach at St. Peter’s College for 4 seasons.

Playing at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, under coach Ed Lyons, who spent over 50 years in the game, Walsh was the 1989 New Jersey College Division Player of the Year as a pitcher and All-Middle Atlantic Conference as a designated hitter. He graduated in 1989 with a degree in business administration.

In 2001, Walsh’s Union Hill High School squad was 14-9 and earned berths in the state tournament and in the Hudson County playoffs. In his first season (2000), the Hillers also made the state and county playoffs, going 13-12 overall for Union Hill’s best record since the mid-1990s. During his time at Union Hill, Walsh also served as the head freshman football coach and the assistant boys basketball coach.

Prior to his time at Union Hill, Walsh led River Dell High in Oradell, N.J. to exactly 100 wins, earning berths in the Bergen County and the state tournaments in each of his six seasons. His teams captured three straight Bergen County Scholastic League American Division titles during his tenure.

Walsh, a special education teacher for the Union City Board of Education, earned a master’s degree in education from New Jersey City University after graduating from Upsala.

In 2006, Walsh was elected to the Weehawken High School Hall of Fame as a three-sport athlete in baseball, football and basketball.

Walsh, his wife Susan, and two children, Kate and Jack, live in Westwood, New Jersey.  Jack has been a player in the Crush organization since its inception.

Evan graduated from Pascack Hills High School in 2007 and played both football and basketball all four years. Throughout his athletic career in high school, he was voted first-team All County in basketball and first-team All North Jersey in football. He continued his athletic career at Rutgers University where he played under Greg Schiano for four years. He was voted as a special-teams captain and was a starter at Tight End while at Rutgers. His team won three bowl games in four years. Evan currently coaches football at Pascack Hills High School where he is going on his fourth year as Varsity Head Coach. Prior to being the head coach, he was an Assistant for ten years and also ran the strength and conditioning program. While Evan has been head coach at Pascack Hills, there have been six players that furthered their football careers and went on to play at the collegiate level. The Pascack Hills football program is 20-9 with Coach Lampert at the helm, 16-3 over the past two years with back-to-back conference championships.

A three sport all-state athlete (Football, Basketball, Baseball) at Wallington HS, Paul was drafted in the 5th round by the Detroit Tigers in the 1991 draft. He finished his high school career with a 38-8 pitching record which is the most wins in New Jersey history. He also finished with a career .375 batting average over 4 years, including hitting .435 with 5 HRs and 33 RBI as a Senior. 

Magrini went on to play 3 ½ years in the Tigers chain, before an arm injury and Tommy John surgery sidelined his career a year and a half. He rehabbed and came back to have a successful minor league career in 5 years of independent stops in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Sioux Falls , South Dakota, Johnstown, Pennsylvania and finally with the New Jersey Jackals. He finished with a 38-28 record and a career 3.74 ERA in 9 minor league seasons. He won 2 championships, in 1993 with the Niagara Falls Rapids (Detroit, NY-Penn league), and 1998 with the New Jersey Jackals (Northeast, independent). Magrini was 3-0 in playoff games for the Jackals in a 2-year span and won 18 games. He is a member of the Jackals 5-year Anniversary Team picked in 2002. 

Paul’s coaching career began in 1998 as an assistant at Passaic Valley HS where they won the Passaic County Championship that year. 

He moved on to the college ranks in the fall of 1999 to become the pitching coach at Division 1 Pace University for 2 years where he helped resurrect the program into the successful one it is today. 

From there he took his first head coaching job at Montclair HS where they had not had a winning season in 10 years. Magrini got them there in his 3rd year with a 14-13 record.

Magrini then joined perennial power Nutley HS as an assistant for 3 years where they won 48 games and a conference title. 

He then went on to become the pitching coach at Division 1 Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck from the 2008-2009. 

In 2015 Magrini joined the staff at Paramus Catholic HS as Assistant Head Coach.  In charge of both the offensive and defensive play calling, Magrini led PC to the quarterfinals of the Bergen County Tournament in 2016 for the first time since 1995. They had back-to-back 15 win seasons to put them back on the map.  In June of 2018 he was named Head Coach and was there from 2019-2023. 

In 2024, Magrini moved on to join the staff at St. Joseph’s Regional and helped them to the Bergen County Championship and Team of the Year. The pitching staff threw 3 shoutouts in 4 games in the tournament and had a 1.93 ERA for the year. 

Magrini has been a professional instructor since 1997, running Paul Magrini Baseball, LLC. He has trained many top players in North Jersey. He has managed and run several travel club teams. 

Magrini has had many of his student athletes receive scholarships to top colleges across the U.S. including Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Lehigh, Delaware, Villanova and the College of Charleston. Players have also played at top Division 2, 3 and junior colleges in the area. He stresses player development and finding the right fit for each individual student-athlete so they can have success at the next level. 

Jake Lutz was a starter all 4 years of college baseball at Wagner College and William Paterson University.  Jake was an all-conference and all-region Shortstop, 2nd Basemen, and Centerfielder, with a career .302 batting average and 154 hits, 104 RBI's and 10 home runs in 142 Games throughout his college career. In high school, Jake played at Pascack Valley High School where he was an all-league and all-state shortstop in his sophomore and junior year before his senior year was cut short due to the pandemic.  Jake works extremely hard and is both knowledgeable and passionate about the game, but he says he could not have done it without the coaches and mentors he has had throughout his playing career at all levels. Through coaching, Jake plans on doing the same for future athletes.

Presently, Jake will serve as the infield coordinator and hitting coach for William Patterson

Ray Sarza began his college career as a shortstop/pitcher at St. Thomas Aquinas College where he he had a 0 ERA in 6 games pitched. Ray later transferred to Bloomfield College where he became a 3-year starter.  Ray played his high school ball in Teaneck where he tied the school single-game strikeout record with 14. Ray has an enthusiastic attitude and is willing to go the extra mile to help young players reach their full potential.  Fun fact about Ray - he was an All-County swimmer and was given the Most Outstanding Athlete Award in his Senior Year at Teaneck High School.