CAMDEN — Mike Wilson said his players never stopped believing they were going to win the title.
He said that was true even after his Camden-Wyoming Senior League baseball all-stars fell to MOT, 17-7, last Friday.
But that doesn’t mean the prospect of trying to win three games in three days wasn’t daunting for Wilson, the C-W manager.
“It was stressful for me,” he said with a laugh. “But the guys, they didn’t care. Most of them play for school and travel ball.
“They’re used to just going out there, another (game) after another.”
Camden-Wyoming pulled off the comeback,winning three games in a row to take the District I championship on Monday night.
The title sends C-W to the state tournament in Little League’s age division for 14-16 year olds. The three-team, double-elimination tourney starts on Sunday at Newark National
Camden-Wyoming (4-1) opens by facing District III champion Mid-Sussex (3-0) at 7 p.m. The winner takes on the District II champion on Monday with the state finals slated for July 10.
The state champion earns a berth in the Eastern Regional being played at Bangor, Maine.
After allowing 17 runs in its first matchup with MOT, Camden-Wyoming gave up just one in its last two meetings with the Middletown-area squad. C-W won those two games by scores of 10-1 and 10-0.
Quin Collin (7 strikeouts in 4.2 innings), Cole Beaver and Zayne Collins all pitched for Camden-Wyoming in the first of those two games. Connor Heritage then threw a five-inning three-hitter with four strikeouts to earn the shutout in the finals.
“That first game, MOT was just hitting the ball where we weren’t and taking advantages of mistakes we made,” said Wilson. “We made less errors the next two times we played them and our pitchers were dealing.”
Heritage threw only 67 pitches in recording the shutout in the last game. He came out after throwing just 40 pitches against Dover on Saturday so he’d be available if there were a game on Monday.
Wilson said he had a great deal of confidence in Heritage, who will be a junior at Caesar Rodney High in the fall.
“He’s a real good ballplayer and has been for as long as I’ve known him,” said Wilson. “He’s used to performing in those types of situations. We just kind of left him alone and let him do his thing.
“We weren’t expecting a shutout but we were expecting him to compete, for sure.”
C-W ended up playing five games in six nights to win the district tournament. That included one game when the temperature was well into the 90s.
But Wilson that demanding stretch didn’t seem to faze his players.
“The hotter it was, the better we played,” he said.
“They never lost confidence in themselves,” Wilson added. “They thought that they were the best team out there.”
Several of Camden-Wyoming’s players were teammates on Caesar Rodney’s 8-3 junior varsity squad this spring. A couple more played for Polytech.
Wilson said the only thing that C-W’s players are focused on right now is trying to beat Mid-Sussex.
“We never look ahead,” he said. “It’s always take it one game a time, one out at a time.
“Quite honestly, we’re starting over. We’re going out there (to practice) working on what we need to work on. Last week’s over.”
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