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Retiring as the head baseball coaches at Livingston and Millburn, respectively, are Mickey Ennis (in top photo) and Brian Chapman, while a longtime North Jersey baseball coach Dave Pasquale is returning to Newark Academy to be the Minutemen's athletic director after two decades at Gill St. Bernard's. Retiring as pitching coach at West Essex is Chris Checchetto (in rear, right) as Knights' head coach Joe Cardinale talks to the team. (SC photos and by Jeff Stiefbold)
Changes are coming next spring in terms of those who will be guiding two of the top baseball programs in the Super Essex Conference’s best division, the American, while a familiar face with a strong background in the sport is returning to the school where his coaching career began more than three decades ago.
In addition, one of the American Division’s top assistant coaches is also exiting stage right after eight seasons as one of the more experienced and knowledgeable pitching coaches in the SEC.
Also, in terms of schedule housekeeping in SEC baseball it has been decided that conference games will be played back-to-back days, when necessary, due to the inevitable wet weather and subsequent rainouts that hit us with some regularity virtually every year.
As far as division makeup for the 2026 SEC baseball season, there are only a few teams moving up or own among the conference’s five divisions and no changes at all in the American where the same six teams will remain Seton Hall Prep, Livingston, West Essex, Millburn, Montclair and Columbia.
The two very familiar faces retiring from the top position in their SEC-American Division team's dugout are Millburn’s Brian Chapman and Livingston’s Mickey Ennis, who have combined to win three of the past seven Greater Newark Tournament championships.
Their retirements were first reported by Guy Kipp of tapinto.net.
The 55-year-old Chapman (291-114, .719 in 14 seasons) guided Millburn to a pair of overall Group 4 state titles in 2015 and 2017 plus a North 2, Group 3 state sectional crown in 2023 with his last strong squad (27-4) which featured Oakland A’s minor league prospect Steven Echavarria, who is currently pitching for the Lansing Lugnuts in ‘High’ A ball.
A former sportswriter with Dorf’s Feature Service, a subsidiary of the old Star Ledger newspaper, Chapman became a special education teacher at Millburn and retired from that post in June. His high school baseball coaching career was jet-started with a longtime stint at Cranford as the right-man as a top assistant for longtime friend and former college teammate (at FDU) under Dennis McCaffery where he was also a successful head coach of the Cougars’ girls basketball team for eight seasons, including winning a Union County Tournament title in 2005.
It remains to be seen who will take over the reins of Millburn baseball. In addition to his fine cast of veteran assistant coaches, Chapman had also added former St. Joe’s (Met.) head man Mike Murray to his staff last spring.
Ennis, 65, is retiring as head baseball coach for the Lancers but is remaining as head of the 18-21 career intervention special education program at Livingston High School, a position he has enjoyed for the last decade. He guided the Lancers baseball program for nine seasons compiling a 148-93 (.614) record, including 80-46 (.690) the past four seasons when his teams won North 1, Group 4 state sectional titles in both 2022 and 2024.
In addition to winning the GNT title in 2018 defeating Nutley in the final at Verona, Livingston also finished as the runner-up to Seton Hall Prep in both the 2024 and 2025 GNT finals. And, the Lancers edged out the Pirates to capture the SEC-American Division championship in 2024.
Before arriving at Livingston, Ennis also coached at both Newark Academy and Madison, where he spent four seasons and won a sectional state title with the Dodgers. He also had a stint at Millburn as the Millers’ pitching coach.
The Emerson Boro graduate where he played for his dad Larry, the younger Ennis baseball coach had a combined high school record of 262-184-1 (.587).
Mickey Ennis also coached in the college ranks, including guiding Ramapo to a NCAA Division III national championship in 1982 as a young (22-year-old) head coach after taking over the reins for his own former college coach Joe Wladyka from the well-known Wladyka baseball-coaching family.
He also served as an assistant coach for Norm ‘Moose’ Schoenig at Montclair State University before entering private business for a number of years working in sales for a number of trucking companies.
Ennis is endorsing his popular, young pitching coach Corey Feigenbaum, the former West Orange standout hurler, for the Lancers’ head coaching position.
Coming back to Essex County on July 1 is Dave Pasquale, who returns to the school where he started his teaching and coaching career, Newark Academy in Livingston, to become the new athletic director for the Minutemen sports programs.
Pasquale was a highly-regarded baseball and basketball coach at NA where he coached hoops from 1993-2005 and baseball from 1996-2005.
In addition, after he left NA in 2005, he has gone on to have much success in a 2-decade career at Gill St. Bernard’s in Peapack-Gladstone where he was initially athletic director for the Knights and then Dean of Student Life while also coaching the Gill baseball team since 2012.
He has compiled a 370-253 record as a baseball coach combining his time at both NA and Gill. He notched his 300th coaching win in the 2019 season with the Knights, who he guided to a 12-12 record this past spring season.
Retiring as the highly-regarded pitching coach at West Essex is Chris Checchetto, who worked alongside both current Knights head man Joe Cardinale and former coach Eric Johnson during his time at the North Caldwell regional high school.
A former successful head coach at Cedar Grove, Checchetto was also a former standout pitcher at both Verona and Rutgers University under the legendary coach Fred Hill.
He had been the principal at the Gould Avenue School in North Caldwell for the last several years after replacing another solid baseball man in Jack Venezia, who had retired.
Just this spring Checchetto was promoted to be the new superintendent of the North Caldwell elementary schools: Gould and Grandview.
In terms of scheduling next spring, the SEC has decided to have designated Monday and Wednesday scheduled weekday games with Tuesday and Thursday serving as rain dates to hopefully get more regular season games in regardless of the weather.
Looking at the SEC divisions, Montclair Kimberley Academy has moved up to the Liberty Division from the Colonial for 2026.
Follow Steve Tober on 'X' @Chattermeister
Assistant coaches who could emerge as top candidates at their respective schools for vacated head coaching positions are Corey Feigenbaum, who has been recommended for the job at Livingston (in top photo) and Mike Murray (right, in bottom photo) who is seen listening to to the discussion between Brian Chapman and Seton Hall Prep sports information director Jeff Goldberg before 2025 GNT semis. (SC photo and by Ayden Acebo)
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