By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
FRANKLINVILLE — When the Delsea Regional High baseball players made their way out to their home field on Wednesday afternoon, Washington Township was already there, getting loose. The Minutemen — the No. 30 seed in the Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic — couldn’t wait for their opportunity to pull another upset and punch their ticket to the semifinals on Saturday.
And for much of the game it looked as though Township was a team of destiny. The Minutemen jumped out to a 4-0 lead and were cruising behind starting pitcher Connor Hafto. But Delsea is a championship-caliber team, and you don’t get that reputation by rolling over when things get tough.
The always scrappy Crusaders began whittling away at the lead, eventually tying the game at 5 and setting up a bases-loaded walk-off hit-by-pitch as Delsea rallied for a 6-5 win. The victory puts Delsea into Saturday’s semifinals against another upset-minded club — No. 26 Northern Burlington, a 10-3 winner over No. 2 Kingsway in the quarterfinals. The other semifinal features No. 1 Gloucester Catholic — the top team in the state according to nj.com’s weekly Top 20 poll — hosting No. 4 Cherry Hill West.
Delsea got a huge boost from its star players, as Tyler Schoppe, George Starr and Mike McGinley came up big in the later innings. Schoppe blasted a 3-run home run in the bottom of the fourth that got Delsea right back into the game and had the Crusaders trailing just 4-3.
“That felt great,” Schoppe said of the no-doubt blast to left-center field on a 3-and-2 fastball. “I’ve been in a slump the last couple of games and it felt good to provide for the team. It felt good. Washington Township is no joke. That gave us momentum, and if you give us something, we’ll take it.”
“There have been multiple times this year when Shoppe has come up with a big homer,” Starr said. “In previous years, we haven’t really had that guy who can come up and hit a 3-run homer and get us back into the game. We always had to play small-ball, but I think we can do it from every angle this year and that’s what makes us such a good team.”
Township (11-10, 6-2 Tri-County Royal) took a 5-3 lead in the top of the fifth when Jared Dzierzgowski drilled a solo home run to right-center, but Delsea (19-1, 9-0 Tri-County Liberty) came right back in the bottom of the inning, tying the game on an RBI single by Austin Buchanan and a run-scoring double down the right-field line by all-time hits leader McGinley.
Starr, on in relief of starter Frank Cairone, set the Minutemen down in order in the sixth and seventh innings, setting up the dramatic ending. In the bottom of the seventh, Zach Maxwell led off with a single, Buchanan was hit by a pitch, McGinley was intentially walked after a wild pitch, and Cole Hudson was hit by the first pitch he saw, sending Maxwell home with the winning run.
“We walked out to the field at 2:30 and they were here before we were. But we got the job done. It doesn’t matter the score or how many innings it takes, just get the job done. A win is a win,” said Starr, normally a starter this season. “This year we haven’t really been down in a lot of games. We’re 19-1 now, but today was a challenge, and we held up. My role for the majority of the season so far has been as a starter, but today was a different role — come in and try to strike guys out and pound the zone. It’s nothing new for me. The last three years, that was my role. We’re getting late in the season and if they need me in that spot, I’ll do whatever I can for this team.”
Starr said getting a big test from Washington Township is only going to help the Crusaders going forward.
“I think this was great. We’re not going to blow every team out and we can’t act like we’re going to. Losses are going to come. We’re fortunate enough to be 19-1 right now, but we want that pressure to be on us,” he said. “We knew Washington Township was going to be a tough team. They beat St. Augustine Prep (in the opening round of the Diamond Classic). We definitely want that pressure put on us to get us ready for the end of the season.”
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 6 Delsea hosts No. 26 Northern Burlington in the Diamond Classic semifinals on Saturday, time TBD. Washington Township hosts Kingsway today at 4 p.m.
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com.
