BLOOMFIELD — Jose Aponte Jr. understands the history of Bloomfield High School baseball.
He knows the Bengals have built tremendous success under Mike Policastro for the past 20 seasons.
Indeed, Aponte wants to continue that success as he takes over for Policastro.
“It’s always been a good program,” said Aponte, who was recently named the new head Bengals coach. “It’s always gotten high praise and recognition. Coach Policastro has always done a good job there.”
Aponte comes over from Union City High School in Hudson County, where he was an assistant varsity coach and JV head coach for the past six years. He also has been a traveling team coach for a pair of organizations.
Being a head coach has always been Aponte’s dream and he couldn’t be more thrilled to be at Bloomfield.
“It’s kind of surreal,” said Aponte, a 2001 graduate of St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in West New York. “It’s a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to be a head baseball coach. I honestly couldn’t think of a better school to do it at, following in Mike Policastro’s footsteps; try to get this program back to where it was and make everybody proud again at Bloomfield.”
In his 20 seasons, Policastro amassed 264 career wins at Bloomfield, including leading the Bengals to a Group 4 state sectional title in 2008. In all, Bloomfield reached five state sectional finals under Policastro. Their last sectional final was in 2023, when they lost a wild 12-11 home decision to Ridgewood.
Aponte, who attended Bergen Community and Montclair State, stresses the importance of fundamentals.
“I want to build a foundation of discipline, accountability, fundamentals,” Aponte said. “Those are my first three core principles. Baseball is a game of detail, and I think those are the three most important aspects of the game.”
Aponte has already hit the ground running. He has devised a power-point presentation for his players when they return to school in September. He also has enrolled them in the Wladyka team winter program, an eight-week program that details hitting and pitching instruction, guided by coaches from throughout the state, as the Bengals hope to turn around their fortunes after going 7-20 last spring.
Aponte’s goals for the team are to compete in every game, play hard and fast, and limit errors, in addition to executing the fundamentals.
Photo Courtesy of Jose Aponte Jr.
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