By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
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FRANKLINVILLE — Tuesday afternoon, under the bright sunshine cascading down on Delsea Regional High School, Cumberland Regional junior right-hander Jonathan Rossi had a choice to make — give in, wilt under the pressure and let the host Crusaders steal a victory in walk-off style, or dig down deep and find a way to work out of perhaps the biggest jam he’s ever been in as a varsity pitcher.
Here was the situation: Cumberland holding a one-run lead but facing a bases loaded, nobody out situation. Delsea had any number of ways to plate at least the tying run, and maybe the winning run as well. A near hopeless position for any pitcher to be in.
But Rossi didn’t work as hard as he did all afternoon to simply give up at the end. He sensed this could be a turning point for the entire Cumberland baseball program, and he performed as though it was. He induced a pop-up in a safety squeeze situation, then struck out the next two batters — nearly reaching the single-game pitch-count limit — to nail down a 4-3 victory over the Crusaders, a team that annually is in the mix for the South Jersey Group 3 title.
Sure, it was just a regular-season game in early May, but this victory meant a little bit more to a team that is hungry for success, and respect. The Colts have now won four straight games, 11-of-13, and can wrap up a Tri-County Conference Liberty Division title with a win over this same Delsea team on Wednesday. A Delsea win means the teams share the division title.
“The biggest thing about these guys is they are fighters. We had five wins last year and now we have 16. I’d have to do some digging to find out the last time this program had 16 wins in a season, and we have the ability to win more,” said Cumberland’s fourth-year coach, Kyle Daddario, a 2015 graduate of the school. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen in this kind of moment, this kind of game, and I’ve been around a lot of baseball. He just bore down. I went out there when it was bases loaded and no outs, and I had a feeling they were going to try to bunt and all we kept saying in the dugout was, ‘I hope he pops it up.’ And he did. That’s just baseball. But Jonathan has been an absolute dude for us all year. He has really stepped up to the plate for us as a junior.”
“I just went out there throwing strikes and trusting my defense. Calls went my way, I hit my spots — that was pretty much it,” Rossi said. “First-pitch strikes are always an advantage. The first pitch is always the biggest pitch of the at-bat. I was hyped up. We’re tied with them in the division. We’re here. People don’t think we are, but we are. This was a huge win for us, the biggest win of the season so far.”
Added senior Kevin Fiorani, Rossi’s catcher: “My pitchers do a phenomenal job of moving the ball all over the zone, and they trust me to call the pitches. They put the ball where they need to.”
Cumberland (16-7, 8-1 Tri-County Liberty) got on the board early, as Tyler Kundera ripped an RBI double to the gap in right-center. Later in the second inning, Boyd Fithian drew a bases-loaded walk to push the lead to 2-0. Delsea (11-6, 7-2 Tri-County Liberty) cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the second on Pierce Delaney’s run-scoring single to center, but the Colts stretched their lead to 4-3 with a pair of runs in the third on a wacky, two-run high chop single from Trevor Brogen that bounced over the shortstop’s head.
But the Crusaders are used to playing in big games and they stormed back with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. An infield error set up an RBI single by senior infielder Ethan Dubois, and Delsea crept to within 4-3 on a single by Nate Jackson that included a two-base outfield error. But Rossi stranded Jackson at third by inducing a flyout.
Delsea started to rattle Rossi at the start of the seventh inning, as a single by Ryan Looby an an infield error put two runners on. Rossi then walked DuBois to load the bases.
“Listen, stuff was falling apart there in that last inning and I went up to him and said, ‘Jon, you have to believe you can get three (outs),’” said junior shortstop Kameron Fiorani, Kevin’s brother. “Even before the inning started, I was like, ‘Jon, you’ve got the stuff, just trust it.’ And he followed through. He never gave up and he just went to work, and that’s what it takes.”
“We have a mentality as a coaching staff that if we get into a certain spot in the game, it’s (the starting pitcher’s) game to go out and win. It’s his game. And having the trust in our guys to be able to finish it out works wonders as a coach,” Daddario said. “This is flat-out a confidence boost. We can say we’ve been there, done that, so the next time should be easier. Is that always the case? No. But now we can go into a playoff game on the road and have confidence against a competitive team.”
Rossi let out a loud yell after the final strikeout, and his teammates mobbed him near the dugout as if the Colts had just won the division title. There’s still more work to do Wednesday if they want that to be a reality, but tonight players and coaches feel like they have earned a measure of respect.
“We have a bunch of dogs on this team and we’re never going to give up,” Kevin Fiorani said. “It’s a family, and I love it. We’re out here smashing the baseball. What’s going to put us over the hump is our mindset. We’re never going to give up. It doesn’t matter if (the other team) is the No. 1 ranked team or No. 100, we’re going in there to fight, every single time.”
“Coming into this season, I had a lot of confidence in the guys we have here. We’re and older team with a lot of seniors, and a lot of us have been playing together since we were small kids. It’s a great last huh-rah (for the seniors). We knew coming into this season that we had a bunch of dogs and we were going to have a chance. But it’s not going to be given to us, we have to go out there and take it,” Kameron Fiorani added. “Being Cumberland, we’re not a well-known name (in South Jersey baseball), and, obviously, Delsea is a great school and wins a lot of stuff. But what got us over the hump was us having a lot of dogs.
“Coming into this game, we knew what we were up against, but we really don’t care who we go up against. I have confidence in everyone we have (on the pitching staff) and every guy through the lineup. We have a bunch of guys who are going to go out there and compete for each other. We’re not a selfish team. We’re here to play for each other, and that’s what sets us apart.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Delsea Regional at Cumberland Regional, Wednesday at 4 p.m.
