CAMDEN — Caesar Rodney High’s baseball team knew it had to start with the regular season.
If the Riders were ever going to get anywhere in the DIAA state tournament, they had to earn a better seeding.
CR accomplished that part. The Riders’ 13-5 record — their best mark in a decade — earned them the No. 6 seed and a first-round bye in the tourney.
Now CR’s players want to see if they can make it pay off.
The Riders play their tournament opener on Saturday with a 1 p.m. home game against either Dover or Archmere. No. 1 Sussex Central, No. 2 Sussex Tech and No. 3 Cape Henlopen will also be hosting 1 p.m. matchups on Saturday.
If there were a couple games that helped CR believe in itself, they came in the last week of April. In a five-day stretch, the Riders lost to Sussex Tech just 1-0 and then beat defending state champion Delaware Military — the fourth seed — by a 1-0 margin.
“The Tech game really showed us that we can hang with those top teams,” said CR junior pitcher Steven Donigan. “And DMA just proved that we can beat the top teams, if we do the correct things.”
“I think we’ve seen a lot of good competition this year, a lot of good arms,” said senior second baseman/pitcher Brandon Hatch. “We’ve seen some of the top arms in the state.
“We had a very tough loss toward the end of our season. We feel like we can come out and show we’re a lot better than that.”
Saturday’s contest will mark the first time that CR has hosted a state tournament game since 2021. The Riders are 2-3 in the tourney over the last three seasons, including a tough 5-3 loss at Salesianum last May.
CR led the Sals, 3-2, going into the bottom of the fifth inning in that game. The Riders are 5-3 in games decided by two runs or less this season.
“We’ve talked about it all year,” said CR coach Jeff Gravatt. “Being able to maintain our composure when we get punched in the face and keep grinding and keep working through it.”
In their season finale, the Riders fell behind Polytech by a couple runs early but rallied to win 3-2 on a run in the seventh.
“It’s a great thing to see going into the state tournament,” said Gravatt. “I told the team, that’s how a lot of these games are won. It’s not a 10-9, it’s not a 9-8. It’s 3-2 or 4-3-type of games come state tournament time.
“These guys have a lot of fight, a lot of grit. We’ve come a long way. It’s been a great thing to see.”
The baseball tournament has been one where the seeding often doesn’t seem to matter much. The Riders just know that while having a first-round bye and a home game helps, the seeding doesn’t mean anything after that.
CR beat both Dover and Archmere during the regular season — although the win over the Senators was in the season opener on March 21. The Riders went 6-4 against teams in this year’s state tournament.
“We’re 0-0 now so it’s win or go home at this point,” said Donigan. “We appreciate where we’re at but this is not where we want to finish. We want to go further than we did last year.
“I think we have a chance to win — that’s our goal. We’re going to try our best to do it.”
“My biggest goal right now is to get back to Frawley,” said Hatch.”It (the season) has been amazing. Thirteen and five? I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
The Riders would have to win two games to get to the state semifinals, which are played at Wilmington’s Frawley Stadium.
CR knows that it won’t be easy to keep winning.
“We’ve got to go out and get the job done because nothing is given to you in the playoffs, that’s for sure,” said Gravatt. “I told the guys, when get to the state tournament, there’s always upsets.
“All these teams are good. Every team in the tournament has at least one top arm that they can throw. All we can control is what we can control.”
Extra innings
- Since 2018, Cape Henlopen is 14-3 in state tournament games with two state titles (2018, ‘22) in five seasons.
- Only four traditional public schools outside the Henlopen Conference made the 24-team bracket. There are seven New Castle County private schools in the field.
- Every team in the tournament has at least two losses. Sixteen teams have at least five losses.
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