Playing in a Frawley Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals’ Minor League affiliate Wilmington Blue Rocks, during a state championship bout last Tuesday night, it looked as if one team on the field had a professional offense.
Unfortunately for Sussex Central’s Golden Knights (20-3), that team was the eventual state champion St. Mark’s Spartans.
After slugging out a whopping 19 hits off four different Central pitchers, tourney fifth-seed St. Mark’s won the school’s 10th state title and fifth this decade by way of 13-4 victory.
“I’ll tip my hat to all their hitters,” first-year Central head coach Todd Brock said after the loss. “They have a top-notch program, and when you have 19 hits in a game, it’s tough to lose.”
Oddly enough, when the two teams met early in the regular season, it was the Knights who won 11-2 in blowout fashion.
During the regular season Central win, the Knights had junior ace Trevor Wilkins on the hill and he had little trouble with the Spartans’ bats.
Wilkins, however, was unavailable to pitch in the state final, as he went all seven innings on the hill in No. 3 Central’s 9-1 win over second-seed Salesianum in the semifinal round three days prior.
With a large lead against Sallies, Brock and his pitching coach Guy Wilkins – Trevor’s father – discussed the possibility of pulling the ace after five innings to keep him eligible for the state final, but the staff decided to leave keep him in the semifinal bout.
The decision was based on the several innings Wilkins had pitched in the state tournament up to the final game.
“Guy and I discussed it, but he made the comment about Trevor pitching next year, and we agreed to leave him in against Sallies,” Brock said. “Even if he had been available for this game, I can tell you we wouldn’t have used him for more than an inning.”
Instead, the Knights went with sophomore Michael Schlitter to start the contest, but inexperience, nerves and a few Central errors plagued his outing.
St. Mark’s, in fact, plated three runs in the top half of the first inning thanks to a pair of RBI singles and a sacrifice fly.
Undauntedly, the Central offense bounced back in the bottom half of the frame when it knotted the game at three off Spartans junior ace Taylor Mahoney, a St. Mark’s error and a two-run double off sophomore Chris Conaway’s bat accounted for the scores.
Things looked a little better for Schlitter in the second, as he pitched his way out of a jam and kept the Spartans off the board, which Central followed by taking its only lead of the game in the bottom half of the inning.
The Knights’ 4-3 advantage came when senior DJ Long worked his way to a full count off Mahoney before blasting a triple and later scored when classmate Peter Ott singled.
From there, however, it was all Spartans, as the victors recaptured the lead with a two-run third off Schlitter, plated another pair of runs in the fourth off freshman reliever Connor Cooper and Mahoney settled in on the hill, not allowing a hit the rest of the way.
“He just kept us off balance,” Long said of the change in Mahoney’s pitching after the third inning. “Maybe we were trying to hard because we were behind.”
With a 7-4 lead in the top half of the sixth inning, St. Mark’s put the game away when its offense exploded for the game’s final six runs.
Guiding Central back to the state championship game for the first time in 20 years and just the second time ever, Brock had mixed emotions once the game concluded.
“Before the season, when we started, our goal was to win a state championship, and we knew we had a team capable of doing it,” Brock said after the contest. “Yeah, we had a good season, went 20-3 and won the Henlopen [Conference], but right now, it’s tough not to be very disappointed.”
