An Unpredictable Game
The NJSIAA state tournament in all sports is so difficult in the fact that it is one and done. The single elimination aspect of the tournament adds more pressure, more so with the favorites.
In some states such as Pennsylvania, a team can lose in the playoffs and still be alive, but that isn’t the case in New Jersey.
And the unpredictability of the NJSIAA baseball tournament was never more evident than in South Jersey Group 3.
That’s because two excellent teams, top seeded Mainland and No. 3 seed Delsea were knocked out in the quarterfinals.
And the losses weren’t considered stunners, which is a testament to the parity in South Jersey baseball.
Earlier in the season during the 32-team Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic, Mainland beat Delsea, 3-2 in a semifinal thriller and looked like a sectional final preview.
In that game Mainland lefthander Finn Haines went the distance, striking out 15 in one of his top performances of a great senior year.
Mainland would go on to win the Diamond Classic title with a 4-0 championship victory over Haddonfield.
The Mustangs had great momentum entering the NJSIAA tournament, but after a 6-0 opening South Jersey Group 3 win over Deptford, they met their match with old rival Ocean City.
In the quarterfinal, Ocean City scored a 3-1 victory over Mainland and suddenly at 17-10, the Mustangs season was over.
The fact that Ocean City beat Mainland was far from a shocker.
During the second week of April, the two teams played each other on consecutive days, with Mainland winning the first game 3-2 and then losing the next day by the identical 3-2 score at Ocean City.
Meanwhile Delsea earned a 3-1 win over Highland in the first round of the Group 3 tournament. The Crusaders were then eliminated by No. 6 seeded Shawnee, 5-0 in the second round.
What made the win more impressive is that Shawnee beat Delsea with its ace on the mound, senior lefthander Frank Cairone, who is a candidate to be selected in the Major League baseball first-year player draft.
Cairone pitched well against Shawnee. He allowed four runs in six innings, but only one was earned, while striking out 12 and walking five.
Meanwhile Shawnee used three pitchers with Kayden Maybury earning the win, throwing four shutout innings of one-run ball.
Again, it should not come as a surprise that Shawnee won such a big game. The Renegades compete in one of South Jersey’s toughest conferences, the Olympic American, which means two regular season games against the likes of heavyweight Group 4 schools Eastern and Cherokee. The win over Delsea improved Shawnee to 14-11, yet it was a schedule where there were few automatic W’s.
Shawnee has had to fight for everything, but playing a difficult schedule surely helped.
Whether Ocean City and Shawnee advance further or not, it shows that there isn’t much that separates the teams in Group 3, and in many of the Groups.
Baseball is an unpredictable game as that was once again evident during a wild quarterfinal series of South Jersey Group 3 games.
Photo: Ocean City's Evan Taylor / Marc Narducci
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Author: Marc Narducci
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