Rain this week has wreaked havoc on the CHSAA Class AA baseball playoffs, forcing teams to play doubleheaders on Memorial Day in an effort to shoehorn everything in before a planned June 8 championship.
Coaches are most concerned about the state of their pitching staffs — some teams will have to play six games in five days next week to make a run deep into the postseason.
That’s what made Fordham Prep’s 9-1 win over Iona Prep yesterday at Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains so important. The victory broke a first-place tie atop CHSAA Bronx/Westchester and gives Fordham a bye into the eight-team, championship round of the playoffs, which begins Wednesday.
“It’s huge,” Rams right-hander Sean McNamara said. “It saves a lot when it comes to our pitching staff. We’re a little short already.”
Fordham has been missing co-ace Jack Becker all season with an elbow injury. McNamara, though, has picked up the slack and he was dominant yesterday, tossing a complete-game two-hitter by simply pounding the strike zone. He threw just 68 pitches and will be 100 percent Wednesday for the opener of the championship round. Virginia Tech-bound shortstop Andrew Velazquez led the hitting onslaught, going 3-for-4 with two RBIs and three runs scored.
Fordham Prep plays today against Xaverian and tomorrow in the seeding tournament— two non-elimination games to determine playoff spots for the four regular-season division winners.
Iona Prep, though, has to play two games in a third-round, best-of-three series Monday against an opponent to be determined. If those two games are split, Iona will have to come back and win Tuesday to earn a berth into Wednesday’s double-elimination championship round.
CHSAA baseball commissioner Wally Stampfel said there’s no way around cramming things in. The state mandates that a baseball season can only be a certain amount of weeks.
“If we don’t finish by that date, we have to apply for a waiver,” Stampfel said. “We don’t want to go down that road. We want to leave a few days before the drop-dead date in case there’s more bad weather.”
