Let’s call it Manager County. John Schneider, the pride of Lawrence High, had a memorable season in charge of the Toronto Blue Jays. The 45-year-old guided Toronto to the AL East title, the AL pennant and nearly the World Series, only falling to the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers after an epic and enthralling seven-game series. For that Schneider is our Trentonian SportsPerson of the Year. “I’ve said it before, besides my wife and kids, this is what I pour my life into,” Schneider said after the Blue Jays advanced to the World Series. “To be leading the team that is going back to the World Series for the first time in 32 years kind of hits me a little bit.” Schneider was a star pitcher and catcher at Lawrence High before going on to the University of Delaware. The Blue Jays selected him in the 13th round of the 2002 draft, but he never reached the majors after his career was shortened by a series of concussions. In the spring of 2008, he began discussing a transition from playing to coaching. He got his first managerial gig in charge of the rookie ball team in the Gulf Coast League and rose up the organizational ladder with stops in Low-A, High-A and Double-AA before he was named the big league club’s bench coach in 2019. Schneider took over on an interim basis in 2022 when Charlie Montoyo was fired midseason and was named permanent skipper after getting the team to the postseason that year. He guided the Blue Jays to the playoffs again in 2023, but everything went wrong in 2024 and they finished in last place. But this season he engineered a worst-to-first turnaround as Toronto went 94-68 and earned the top seed in the AL. The Blue Jays defeated their division rival Yankees in the ALDS and then rallied after dropping the first two games at home against Seattle to clinch the pennant in a dramatic Game 7 in front of a delirious Canadian crowd. That set the stage for what could be considered the best World Series ever against Shohei Ohtani and the mighty Dodgers. The teams split the first two games north of the border then an all-time Game 3 followed. One that was actually two games wrapped into one and didn’t end until future Hall of Famer Freddie Freeman cracked a solo homer in the bottom of the 18th inning for Los Angeles. Down two games to one and seemingly on the ropes, Schneider’s Jays bounced back to win the next two in Hollywood and headed home with two chances to win one and lift the World Series for the first time since 1993. But as FOX play-by-play man Joe Davis said, “to beat the champ you got to knock them out,” and the Blue Jays couldn’t land the decisive blow. The Dodgers repelled a ninth-inning Toronto rally in Game 6 to force the winner-take-all Game 7. What came next was a game for the ages. Eleven innings of edge-or-your-seat baseball. Momentum swings on both sides. An early lead for the home team. A dramatic comeback. A play at the plate and an epic catch in the ninth. Extra innings again. Bo Bichette whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a three-run homer off Ohtani in the third inning. The Dodgers clawed back runs in the fourth and sixth, but the Jays restored the lead to two in the home sixth. Max Muncy cut the deficit back to one with a solo shot in the eighth to set the stage for the ninth. With one out, number nine hitter Miguel Rojas launched a solo shot off Jeff Hoffman to tie it at 4-all. Toronto loaded the bases with one out in the home ninth, but Rojas made a terrific play to snare a hot shot off the bat of Daulton Varsho and throw out Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the plate by thinnest of margins. Still, the Blue Jays had the red-hot Ernie Clement at the plate and he hit a deep drive to left center, but Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages ran the ball down in the gap and snared it as he plowed over left fielder Kike Hernandez. L.A. catcher Will Smith homered in the 11th and series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto induced a doubleplay ball to end it. “It’s hard to get this close and it’s hard to see this group not be together, and it’s going to happen at some point, you just don’t want it to happen this way,” Schneider told FOX in the aftermath of Game 7. “The message was just thank you for all they sacrificed and how they went about it.” The Blue Jays are already one of the favorites to win the World Series in 2026. But if anybody knows how nothing is handed to you its the Lawrence High Hall of Famer. “You never know where the game is going to take you,” he said. “… Where we’ve ended up is pretty cool.” HONORABLE MENTIONS Jim Barlow: The Mercer County Soccer Hall of Famer’s 23rd season at the helm of his alma mater was his best. Barlow guided Princeton University men’s soccer team to a 15-2-2 record and Ivy League double. The Tigers went 7-0 in Ivy play and became the first team to ever do it without conceding a goal. They won the Ivy League Tournament and earned the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. Princeton had an Ivy record four players — Giuliano Fravolini Whitchurch, Andrew Samuels, Jack Jasinski and Bardia Hormozi — selected in the MLS SuperDraft. Luke Caldwell: When it comes to three-sport stars in Mercer County none shone brighter than Caldwell. It was on the lacrosse field where he really stood out. In his senior season, Caldwell led all of New Jersey in goals (121) and points (170) to finish with the third-most points in state history (465; 302 goals, 163 assists). Hopewell Valley went 21-3 and finished as runner-up in Group II. He’ll play his freshman season for Division III Washington and Lee this coming spring. Jeff Fisher: There can’t be a year-in-review list without a Fisher brother. A former SportsPerson winner, Fisher has turned boys soccer into the new dynasty in Robbinsville. The Ravens won their fourth straight sectional title and reached the state final for the third time in four seasons. They fell, 4-3, in an overtime heartbreaker to Madison and finished with a 17-8-1 record. Khalid Lewis: How about a state title in your return to the place where you were once king of the court? That’s exactly what Lewis did when he took over at Thrive Charter — he was once the star point guard at the school when it was Trenton Catholic Academy — and guided the Titans to the Group I state championship. They capped off a 26-4 season with a 63-51 victory over Newark Tech in the final. Jenn Melker: Steinert softball has proven itself to be one of the premier programs in the state under Melker’s guidance. The Spartans went 22-4 this past spring and capped it off with a history-making victory in the Group III final. Having been shut out for six innings by Randolph, Steinert rallied with three in the bottom of the seventh to walk off a 3-2 winner and become the first public school to capture three straight state championships. Kevin Schnall: What a year it was for managers from Mercer County. In his first season skippering his alma mater Coastal Carolina, the Hamilton native and Notre Dame High grad took the Chanticleers all the way to the finals of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. Coastal came up short in the best-of-three against LSU — Schnall was ejected in the first inning of Game 2 — but finished with a 56-13 record. Schnall was rewarded with a contract extension through the 2030 season. ...read more read less