CAMDEN – With a purple No. 12 jersey hanging in the dugout and several players with the number drawn on their wristbands as reminders, the Camden High School baseball team is playing out this season with heavy hearts.
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Joshwa Boston, a senior on last year’s club, was murdered in the Kensington section of Philadelphia in the early morning hours on May 4, according to head coach Greg Gasparovic.
The Panthers dedicated the remainder of the season to their former teammate, retiring his No. 12 until the final out of the spring.
“It was tragic and these kids are dealing with unthinkable adversity,” said Gasparovic, who is in his fourth season as Camden’s head coach.
“We met as a team and decided to retire his number. The player who was wearing it understood the situation and gave the number up. We’ve been hanging it in the dugout and have been thinking about him. It's brought us good luck lately.”
While Boston didn't play a ton of innings during his career with Camden, he was a popular player on the team. He also came back in recent weeks to talk to his former teammates and catch a few games, keeping in constant contact with the program.
“He was watching us, helping us, talking to us, he was still a part of us,” senior Nedison Delarosa said. “I feel sad because he was a great baseball player and it’s hard when you lose a teammate.”
Gasparovic remembers Boston as a respectful kid with quite a grip.
“He had the firmest handshake and always looked me in the eye, ‘Coach, how are you?,’ always with respect,” Gasparovic said. “He was tough. He would run through a wall for this team.”
Gasparovic said Boston’s mother was in attendance for Tuesday’s game with Medford Tech and that the team would attend her son’s service next Tuesday to play their respects.
Something's growing in Farnham Park
Camden’s athletic facilities at Farnham Park have enjoyed plenty of success thanks to its football and track programs.
Could baseball be next to bloom into something special in the city’s famous park?
On the heels of last season’s six-win season the Panthers have produced seven wins this spring while playing a limited varsity schedule. The program had eight wins total over a seven-year stretch from 2017-2024 (not including the pandemic-cancelled 2020 season).
“We’re trying to do big things here,” Gasparovic said. “We’re putting batting cages up and fixing the field for these kids to have a better opportunity with baseball. The wins will come, but to see the progress this group has made is the most important thing for me.”
Camden had won five games in a row before Tuesday’s 8-5 home loss to Medford Tech. The Panthers took a 4-3 lead into the seventh inning, but was erased when the Jaguars plated five.
Heading into the game, senior Nedison Delarosa was among the leaders in the Garden State in several offensive categories, including batting average (.714), slugging percentage (1.314) and on-base percentage (.757). He went 1-for-2 with an RBI single, two HBPs and two runs scored against Medford Tech.
“I’m played here for a while now, we lose a lot of games and we win a lot of games,” said Delarosa, who held Medford Tech to three runs while striking out nine in six innings of work before reach his pitch-count limit (113). “We just need to stay focused.”
The game
If Medford Tech plans on making the postseason, a win against Camden was crucial.
Down to their final three outs, the Jaguars had their first seven batters reach base in the seventh inning, pushing across five runs in the process en route to the key victory.
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Tyler Dickinson and Zachary Brenner each delivered run-scoring hits before Santino Giannetto drove in two with a single.
Jake Inman got the win in relief, getting the final six outs, including two by strikeouts.
Medford Tech improved to 10-10. The team was one spot out of the 16th-and-final slot in the South Jersey Group 2 power points heading into Tuesday.
“We have a really good core here, a hard-working group,” said Medford Tech head coach Dean Caton.
Junior Mason Simon struck out 11 over his five-plus innings on the bump. He struck out the side in the second and fifth innings, stranding three runners in scoring position in those frames.
Simon, who had been mired in a small slump with just two hits in his previous eight games, was the sparkplug for his squad, roping a pair of triples and getting a HBP to start the seventh inning. He scored three runs.
“He’s an athlete,” Caton said about the leadoff hitter. “He creates stuff. He’s in the top three in the state in steals and when he gets on the base paths, look out.”
Simon, who wrestles and plays football for Maple Shade (his home district school because Medford Tech doesn't have those sports), said the ability to rally for a win said plenty about this team’s character.
“It was amazing, coming back and putting up all of those runs in the seventh inning, it was a great feeling,” he said. “Being able to grow with this team, it’s been really exciting to see things playing out this way.”
Medford Tech has two games left before the cutoff for the state tournament. The Jaguars play Camden Tech and Paulsboro on Wednesday and Thursday, respecdtively.
Tom McGurk is a regional sports editor for the Courier-Post, The Daily Journal and Burlington County Times, covering South Jersey sports for over 35 years. If you have a sports story that needs to be told, contact him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @McGurkSports. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Camden baseball honors former player Joshwa Boston
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