A New Jersey baseball player who battled cancer beat it in time to play with his team in the state championship.

Mendham's Billy Price was fighting a disease of the immune system, non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He had a tumor near his throat, but he didn't want his senior season to end on the bench.

Three months ago, Price was in the hospital for the first of nine aggressive chemo treatments. But Price says that baseball has helped lift him up, especially playing at Delbarton where the field is named after a coach who went through something similar.

Coach Brian Fleury battled Hodgkin's lymphoma for two decades. He passed away just short of his 40th birthday.

Bruce Shatel took over for Fleury after coaching with him for more than 10 years. They grew up together in Morris County.

"Billy's doing the same thing that Brian did in showing that courageous attitude and positive outlook on life," says Shatel.

Price has a scholarship to Virginia. But first -- he'll try to win a state title Saturday against Saint Augustine.