Red Bank Catholic baseball coach Buddy Hausmann had a little chat with pitcher Alex Stanyek concerning Caseys baseball history.

Hausmann was the winning pitcher the last time RBC won a sectional title. He tabbed Stanyek as his starter for the Caseys June 3 NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public A Tournament final against St. Joe’s, Metuchen.

“I said to Alex, ‘Could you at least win, so they could talk about you and stop talking about me; I’m over it,’” Hausmann said after RBC’s 4-1 victory over the Falcons. “He was looking at me kind of confused. I told him ‘If you can win, they can stop talking about me and how we haven’t won in so long.’”

It had been 26 years since Hausmann won the 1997 Non-Public B sectional final for the Caseys when no one thought they could do it. Since then, there have been some frustrating years when everyone thought they should do it but didn’t.

“These were two different situations,” said Hausmann, now in his 15th year as coach. “When I was a player, RBC baseball just wasn’t good. We almost didn’t make it that year then went on this run. But with this, I feel there’s been more pressure because we’ve had so many teams that have been good, and we flopped. Then it was like, ‘Maybe you’re not that good because you can’t win a state championship.’ It got a little old for me that we couldn’t get over the hump in this game. It’s been frustrating.” 

Stanyek is a cure for frustration. He followed his sterling effort in the Shore Conference Tournament title game with another gem, allowing three hits and one run with nine strikeouts in 6.1 innings.

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“He just wins,” Hasumann said. “The first inning he threw 36 pitches, he said ‘Coach, my fastball’s not good, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.’ They were all over him and scored a run. As the game went on, he was better and better.”

But the senior right-hander trailed 1-0 entering the bottom of the fifth before Matt Brunner was hit by a pitch, bunted to second by Brendan Kopec and scored on an error.

In the sixth, Sean Griggs hit a leadoff single, Frank Scrivanic reached on an error on a sacrifice bunt and Dylan Passo singled to load the bases. Griggs scored on a wild pitch, Brunner hit a sacrifice fly and Kopec hit an RBI single.

RBC didn’t kill the ball but got hits when needed.

“At this time of the year you’re not gonna score tons of runs,” Hausmann said. “These teams aren’t here because they get bombed. They have good pitching, good defense, can swing the bat. You gotta just figure it out, find a way, put pressure on and hope.”

RBC (24-5) will go for the state title June 8 at 7 p.m. in Hamilton’s Veterans Park when it meets defending champion Don Bosco (26-5).

The coach is unsure if Stanyek will be able to start, and if not, he will turn to either Declan Leary or Steve Svenson.

“They’ve both pitched very well for us, and both won a state game already,” he said. “We’ll kind of figure it out the next few days.”