PATERSON, N.J. — With their season on the line and a chance to force a decisive Game 3, the New Jersey Jackals entered Saturday night knowing there was no room for error.
Instead, one swing changed the direction of the night.
The Ottawa Titans defeated the Jackals 6-0 at Hinchliffe Stadium on Saturday, September 12, completing a two-game sweep of their best-of-three playoff series and bringing New Jersey’s season to an end. Ottawa advanced to the Atlantic Conference Championship Series, while the Jackals were left searching for answers after being shut out in their final game of the year.
For the first two innings, there was little separating the two teams.
New Jersey starter Sonny Fauci and Ottawa starter Eric Pardinho matched each other early, keeping the game scoreless through the opening two frames. Each team recorded one hit in the first inning, but neither could turn its early opportunity into a run.
Ottawa went down in order in the top of the second, giving New Jersey an opportunity to strike first. After the first two Jackals hitters were retired on strikes, New Jersey put together its first real threat of the night with a walk followed by a single to center field.
With two runners aboard and two outs, the Jackals had an opportunity to give their home crowd something to celebrate. Instead, Pardinho escaped the jam with a groundout to shortstop, sending the game into the third still scoreless.
That missed opportunity became even more significant moments later.
Thomas Ferroggiaro drew a walk against Fauci to begin Ottawa’s third-inning threat, and Jake Steels followed with a single to right field. Fauci responded with a strikeout and appeared to be working his way out of trouble.
Then Taylor Wright stepped to the plate.
With two outs, Wright drove a ball deep to right field and watched it leave Hinchliffe Stadium for a three-run home run. In a matter of seconds, a scoreless elimination game became a 3-0 Ottawa advantage.
It proved to be the biggest swing of the night.
New Jersey had eight offensive innings remaining to respond, but Pardinho never allowed the Jackals to establish any consistent momentum.
The Jackals went down in order in the bottom of the third on two groundouts and a strikeout, allowing Ottawa to carry its three-run advantage into the fourth. Fauci continued battling on the other side.
After retiring the first two Titans in the fourth, Fauci issued consecutive walks to put runners on first and second. With Ottawa threatening to extend its lead, New Jersey escaped when a ground ball to second ended the inning without any additional damage.
The Jackals again had an opportunity to cut into the deficit in the bottom half. New Jersey opened the inning with a walk, but a double play quickly erased the baserunner. Pardinho then ended the inning with a strikeout.
Ottawa went down 1-2-3 in the fifth, giving the Jackals another opportunity to finally break through.
This time, New Jersey opened the bottom of the inning with a single. A groundout moved the runner to second, putting a Jackal in scoring position with only one out.
Once again, Pardinho had an answer.
A flyout and a groundout ended the threat, leaving the runner stranded and keeping the score at 3-0.
Those stranded runners became the story of the night for New Jersey. The Jackals were able to generate occasional traffic on the bases, particularly early in the game, but never found the hit needed to turn those opportunities into runs.
Ottawa threatened again in the sixth. A leadoff single followed by a wild pitch immediately put a runner on second with nobody out. Fauci answered with a strikeout, but another Titans hit put runners at the corners with only one out.
With the Jackals already down three runs, allowing another run could have put the game even further out of reach.
Fauci refused to let that happen.
The right-hander recorded consecutive strikeouts to escape the inning, firing up the crowd at Hinchliffe Stadium and giving the Jackals another chance to find some life offensively.
Fauci finished his outing with 11 strikeouts. He allowed four runs on five hits while walking four and hitting one batter. It was his third start against Ottawa during the 2026 season, and he reached double-digit strikeouts in all three.
Unfortunately for New Jersey, the energy created by Fauci’s escape did not translate to the plate. Pardinho struck out all three Jackals he faced in the bottom of the sixth, ending his night by striking out four consecutive hitters.
His final line told the story: six shutout innings, four hits allowed, two walks and seven strikeouts in his first career Frontier League playoff start.
Ottawa finally added insurance in the seventh.
After a leadoff walk brought Fauci’s night to an end, Wright struck again with an RBI double, bringing home his fourth run of the game and extending the Titans’ advantage to 4-0.
Wright finished with four RBIs and provided nearly all the offense Ottawa needed.
New Jersey escaped the remainder of the inning without further damage, but time was quickly becoming its biggest enemy.
The Jackals went down in order again in the bottom of the seventh, leaving them six outs away from elimination.
Ottawa made the situation even more difficult in the eighth. The Titans capitalized on a pair of leadoff walks against Andrew Peters. Ferroggiaro drove in a run on a fielder’s choice before Steels delivered an RBI single to right field, stretching the advantage to 6-0. Steels finished with multiple hits in the series-clinching victory, while Wright also recorded a multi-hit performance.
Down six runs, the Jackals needed something dramatic over the final two innings.
It never came.
New Jersey managed a walk in the bottom of the eighth, but consecutive strikeouts ended another scoreless inning. Ottawa reliever Liu Fuenmayor continued where Pardinho left off, throwing two scoreless innings and striking out three.
By the ninth, the Jackals were down to their final three outs of the 2026 season.
Brett Garcia took over for Ottawa and made sure there would be no late comeback. Garcia struck out three in the ninth to finish the shutout and officially send the Titans into the next round.
For Ottawa, the victory represented a piece of franchise history. The Titans won a best-of-three postseason series for the first time in club history and earned a spot in the Atlantic Conference Championship Series against the New York Boulders.
For New Jersey, the ending was much different.
The Jackals entered Saturday night facing the pressure of a win-or-go-home game in front of their home crowd. Their pitching gave them opportunities to stay within striking distance for much of the night, but the offense could never solve Pardinho or Ottawa’s bullpen.
New Jersey had chances.
There were two runners on in the second. There was a leadoff walk in the fourth. There was a runner in scoring position in the fifth. Each time, Ottawa found a way to shut the door.
That was the difference.
The Titans did not overwhelm the Jackals with constant offense. Instead, they took advantage of the opportunities New Jersey gave them. Wright’s three-run homer in the third provided the early separation, his RBI double in the seventh added insurance and Ottawa put the game away with two more runs in the eighth.
Meanwhile, Pardinho, Fuenmayor and Garcia combined to keep the Jackals off the scoreboard for all nine innings.
New Jersey’s season did not end because of one pitch or one at-bat, but Wright’s third-inning home run created a hole the Jackals spent the rest of the night trying to climb out of.
They never did.
As Ottawa celebrated a series victory, the reality settled in on the other side.
There would be no Game 3.
The Jackals’ season was over.
Ottawa moves on to face the New York Boulders in the best-of-five Atlantic Conference Championship Series, beginning Tuesday night at Clover Stadium in Pomona, New York.
For the Jackals, Saturday night marked the final chapter of their 2026 campaign. A playoff run that arrived at Hinchliffe Stadium with hopes of continuing ended under the lights in Paterson, with the Titans moving forward and New Jersey left to look toward next season.
