By RICH FISHER
Contributing Editor
If any team needed time to regroup, it was Red Bank Catholic.
The Caseys had a whirlwind week from May 19-25, playing a Shore Conference Tournament semifinal, a Monmouth County Tournament championship game, two regular-season games and an SCT title contest. Throw in that the senior prom was in the middle of all that, and it’s not surprising coach Buddy Hausmann was happy to have a first-round bye in the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public A tournament.
That meant four days without playing a game before its May 30 South Jersey opener against the winner of the May 29 first-round game between Donovan Catholic, Toms River, and Notre Dame, Lawrenceville.
“I think we kind of needed (time off) after that last week or so,” Hausmann said earlier this week. “We’re looking forward to getting these guys sound again. We’ll practice a little bit, get them ready again. I told them the other night ‘The next time we feel like this we’re collecting uniforms.’ It’s a little different knowing that. Then it starts to hit home.’”
The “other night” was May 25, when Brick Memorial took an 8-7 win over RBC in the SCT championship game. That made for a bittersweet week, with the sweet part coming May 20 when the Caseys defeated Christian Brothers Academy, Lincroft, 8-3 in the MCT finals. It was RBC’s first county championship since 2018, as it lost the title game four times in the previous six seasons.
“It’s always nice to beat them and play against them in a game like that,” Hausmann said. “It’s been a little while since we won that. It was definitely nice to pull that one off and beat CBA. And who knows we could see them again (in the states).”
Offensive contributors against the Colts were Dylan Passo (2 hits, 3 runs) – who is having a huge offensive year with a 1.173 OPS – Jake Frankel (2 hits, 2 RBI, run), Max Dantoni (hit, RBI, run) and Charlie Stumberger (hit, run).
What looked like a breather got tense in the bottom of the sixth. With RBC up 7-3, CBA loaded the bases with no outs, prompting Hausmann to bring in Luke Meyers. With the help of big defensive play by Stumberger, Meyers got three outs without letting a run score and pitched a scoreless seventh to seal the win.
“To pitch out of that was pretty impressive,” Hausmann said. “He did a real nice job.”
The prom was two days later, followed by a win and two losses over the weekend.
The SCT final was frustrating as the Caseys kept battling back, only to fall short. They scored two in the sixth to tie the game at 6-6 before Brick got two in the top of the seventh. RBC got one run back but left runners on first and second as a two-out rally was finally snuffed out.
“I thought we had a pretty good shot with the two pitchers on the mound we had,” Hausmann said. “I didn’t expect them to score that many runs. We score seven runs we should win that game.”
With the local tournaments completed, RBC has spent the week focusing on the states.
CBA is top-seeded while RBC (18-7 record) is seeded second, meaning the two teams could meet for the fourth time this year if both get to the sectional championship game. Also a threat is third-seeded St. Augustine, Richland – the defending Non-Public A state champ which eliminated RBC in last year’s finals.
“Hopefully we can regroup a little bit and get back to what we were doing,” said Hausmann, who will start Ryan Prior against the Donovan Catholic-Notre Dame winner. “We can win it, but it depends on which team comes. If it’s the team we’ve been for the last few weeks we have a shot to beat anybody. We just have to come back with that kind of attitude the way we were playing and just play clean baseball.”
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