By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
X @GDsullysays
FRANKLINVILLE — In last year’s South Jersey Group 3 championship game, Delsea held a 4-2 lead on Mainland before the wheels came off in the top of the fifth inning. The Mustangs rallied for four runs, winning the sectional championship and ultimately going on to play for the Group 3 state championship.
That loss has stuck in the Crusaders’ craw for 12 months now.
Monday featured the second stop on Delsea’s “Redemption Tour” as the Crusaders cruised past Shawnee, 4-1, to capture their second sectional championship in the last three years. They’ll host Central Jersey Group 3 champion Allentown on Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the right to play in the state championship game against either Morris Knolls or Randolph.
Just to get to Monday’s sectional final, Delsea had to vanquish another demon. The fourth-seeded Crusaders slipped No. 1 Cherry Hill West — a team that beat Delsea in the Diamond Classic championship game — in the SJG3 semis on Friday.
“This is our redemption tour,” said senior catcher Mike McGinley. “Last year, we had a heartbreaking loss (against Mainland), and it ends up this year where we played Cherry Hill West in the (sectional) semifinals after they beat us in the Diamond Classic. We had a goal to be back here, and the job’s not finished.”
Delsea (26-3, 10-0 Tri-County Liberty) picked up all four of its runs in the top of the second against seventh-seeded Shawnee (18-10, 5-3 Olympic Patriot), and it was a classic Delsea inning. The Crusaders sent 10 men to the plate and scored four runs despite just one ball leaving the infield. They used three walks, three sacrifice bunts and a pair of errors to their advantage. After the first two runners reached, cleanup hitter Tyler Schoppe put down a bunt and a throwing error to third allowed both runners to score. Another run scored on another error on yet another bunt, and Zach Maxwell drove in a run with an RBI groundout before Shawnee starter Kyle Batt was able to work out of the jam.
“Everybody goes over (bunt defenses). Everybody goes over the bunt situations, but once you get on the field, it depends where the ball is bunted,” said Delsea coach Joe Smith. “Today, they threw the ball away at third and that got us going. You have to prepare for it, but you also have to make the plays. And we have to get the bunts down. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
“That’s what we did against Cherry Hill West, too. We might have had a few more balls to the outfield, but we bunted four or five times in a row. That’s how we play,” McGinley said. “That’s how we win, and our guys are willing to play like that. Most teams don’t have guys who are willing to give up an at-bat. We have some hitters in our lineup and they’re going up there squaring around to bunt. Our team camaraderie is great.”
The Renegades got a run back in the fourth inning on a solo home run by Chase Roberts, but the day belonged to Delsea starter Frank Cairone. The rangy lefty shut down Shawnee, allowing just four hits and three walks in 6 1/3 innings while striking out nine.
“He’s tough. When he’s on and throws strikes and gets ahead of batters, he’s tough to beat. His off-speed was working, he was around the plate. They swung at a couple balls out of the zone, but he mixed it up well,” Smith said.
“That kid is one of the hardest workers I know. He steps out there every day and gets after it. Sometimes, if we’re not on the same page, I’ll go out and talk to him, but today everything was working. I knew from the first inning he was going to be tough to hit,” McGinley said of Cairone. “We’ve grown together. At the start of the season, we didn’t mesh as well because I hadn’t caught him that much. I caught him a little bit last year and it seems like then he got 10 inches taller and gained 40 pounds and is throwing 90 miles-per-hour. It took a little bit for us to mesh, but we’re there now and it’s tough to beat us.”
“I knew in warm-ups with my fastball and curveball, I was locked in. We haven’t really seen them play much but we knew they had some good hitters. My confidence is through the roof right now, myself and George (Starr). We’re locked in every game. Once we scored those four runs, I knew that would be all I needed,” Cairone said. “We’re a team, we’re a family. Everyone does what they’re asked to do, everyone does their job.”
Despite having a 4-1 lead, Smith said he couldn’t relax until Otley Makosky came on in relief of Cairone, who had reached the single-game pitch limit, to record the final two outs.
“It was the same as Cherry Hill West — were up 4-0 in that game, then all the sudden it was 4-1, 4-2, then they hit a gapper and it was 4-4. (They tied it) because we didn’t capitalize earlier in the game,” Smith explained. “We hit a lot of hard balls today. We really squared some balls up, but hit it right at people. Against Cherry Hill West, we really weren’t squaring balls up.”
Delsea players and coaches alike said avenging last year’s loss in the sectional championship game was a big motivator, not only on Monday, but throughout the 2024 season.
“When you have five guys who have played more than 100 games as a high school player — they want to finish it,” Smith said. “They got a bad taste in their mouths last year in the South Jersey Group 3 championship, and we all had that in the back of our heads all season. That definitely fuels me and the rest of the coaching staff, and I think the kids feed off that. They are winners, and competitors.
“Good players make you look good as a coach. But more than talent, I’d rather have the kid who is a hard worker, a grinder, trying to get better every day. Those are the guys I want to coach.”
Said Cairone, “it definitely sucked losing at home last year, but that definitely fueled the fire. It’s way different — not even just today, but this whole year, our team chemistry is great. Nobody is playing for themselves, it’s all about the team.”
So, what’s it going to take for Delsea to add a state championship trophy to its collection? Playing Delsea baseball.
“It’s going to come down to pitching, making the plays, getting the bunts down,” McGinley said. “George (Starr) — there’s nobody better than Frank and George on the mound right now. Two more big wins is our ultimate goal. We want to get it done.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Delsea hosts Allentown at 2 p.m. on Wednesday in the Group 3 state semifinals. Shawnee’s season is complete.
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com.
