Red Raiders upset cross-bay rival and top-seeded Mainland Mustangs 6-1
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
LINWOOD – Well into the 2021 season, the Ocean City High School boys baseball team was still searching for that signature win. They got the most signature win of the season Saturday afternoon when the Red Raiders upset No. 1 seed and cross-bay rival Mainland Regional to win the South Jersey Group III championship.
Pitcher Gannon Brady and his defense kept Mainland to 1 run while the Red Raiders exploded for 6 runs on 10 hits, jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning and never looking back, padding the lead in the fifth and sixth innings.
“I guess you could call this a signature win,” head coach Andrew Bristol said after the game, smiling after being soaked with water in the Red Raiders’ celebration. “I’ve been here 20-something years and this is the biggest I have been a part of. It’s amazing.”
“You have to understand a lot of these kids didn’t play varsity ever so it took them a while to get that together,” Bristol explained. “Once they got that together they had the confidence to play the way we expected them to play.”
Nine games into the 2021 campaign, the Red Raiders had a 5-4 record and had just lost to Egg Harbor Township, which would finish just ahead of them at the top of the American Conference, and then they fell to Mainland Regional, which started the season 10-0.
The Red Raiders won five of their next seven, improving to 10-6, but they had lost big games to Williamstown and Shawnee along the way.
Then they really got into the groove.
Ocean City (19-7)knocked off EHT (19-5) 4-0 in their second meeting and then United Conference leader St. Augustine Prep (23-4) by an 8-6 score. They quickly followed that up with wins over Middle Township and Holy Spirit.
Although they lost their final regular season game to Hammonton, their 14-7 record gave them the No. 2 seed in the South Jersey Group III sectional tournament. On the other side of the bracket lay Mainland, the top seed in the tournament.
The Mustangs (23-4) had to battle their way through the sectional, beating No. 16 seed Absegami 2-1, then No. 9 Triton 8-7 and then Moorestown, the No. 4 seed, 3-2, last Tuesday.
It was a tough road, but the Mustangs, considered by some as the best team in New Jersey, made the South Jersey Group III finals.
Ocean City was geared up and going strong, ripping through its side of the bracket. The Red Raiders blew out No. 15 Camden Tech in the first round, 10-0, beat No. 7 Lacey 3-0 in the quarterfinals and then took out No. 3 seed Central Regional 3-2 over 11 innings in the semifinals last week.
When they got to the South Jersey finals Saturday, in a game delayed for a day by rain, they were ready.
“We were hungry,” Bristol said. “We’ve been hungry for the last couple weeks. We gelled at the right time. We’re playing with such confidence right now and getting Tommy (Finnegan) back in the rotation is huge.”
The coach couldn’t have been happier having Brady on the mound.
Brady was dominating Saturday but that wasn’t anything special. “That’s how he always pitches,” Bristol said. “He’s a big gamer. I’ll take Gannon on the mound any day of the week with a big game on the line.”
Brady kept the Mustangs off the scoreboard for the first three innings while the Red Raiders jumped out to that 3-0 lead in the second after stranding runners in the first inning.
James Mancini got things started with a single and Duke McCarron and Jack Perry bunted to load the bases in a combination of their hustle and miscues by the Mustang defense.
Ben Liebrand singled to bring in the first run and then Brady helped his own cause with a double right over third base that brought in two more runs.
After a scoreless third, Mainland got its only run of the game in the fourth inning.
Mustang Brody Levin hit what should have been a single but he was able to race all the way to third on a misplay. Cole Campbell’s sacrifice fly brought him home.
That would be it for Mainland’s scoring.
Matt Nunan got on base on an error in the top of the fifth inning and then Finnegan hit a big double to move Nunan to third. Mancini’s sacrifice fly scored Nunan for a 4-1 lead.
In the sixth, Liebrand walked to start the inning and moved to second on a balk by Mainland pitcher Mark Elliott. Ben Hoag got a walk, putting him at first. Catcher Joe Repetti came up and hit the ball into the outfield on what looked like a single, but the ball was misplayed. Liebrand and Hoag raced home and Repetti slid into third safety. Ocean City was up 6-1. Neither team threatened in the seventh and Ocean City was able to celebrate its first South Jersey title since 2016, when the Red Raiders beat Highland Regional 5-0.
“We made every play,” Bristol said. “We had the pitching, we had the defense, we had the timely hits. When you get those three, you win baseball games. And we did it today.”
“I knew I just had to throw strikes and trust my defense and that’s what I did today,” Brady, a senior who will play at Fordham next year, said after the game. “They did a really great job backing me up.
“I felt like I had confidence in us the whole time. We got out to a nice early lead and I just kept playing my game and we came out on top,” he added.
The early runs gave the pitcher a little breathing room.
“That was great run support in the beginning. It gave me a lot of confidence going into the later innings and I’m thankful for my offense and defense,” Brady said. He supported his pitching with his batting. “It’s great to help yourself out and I couldn’t have been happier.”
He and the team hope to be a little bit happier. “We want to win states,” Brady said. “We’re not done yet.”
Fellow senior Ben Hoag said the sectional final had been on the team’s mind.
“The whole week we were just talking about ‘let’s make it to Friday.’ Tuesday we had a long game (against Central Regional), but this is the biggest game I’ve ever played in and the greatest feeling,” Hoag said. “I think everybody here can agree this is one of the greatest feelings we’ve ever had. Doing it my senior senior, it’s just unbelievable.
“We knew coming into this year we were going to be a very good team, we capitalized and we did it,” Hoag added.
“My heart was just racing,” he said when asked how it felt to be running past third and on his way home to score a run in a sectional championship game. “I had to go into the dugout and breathe a few times just to make sure I was OK. After that I knew we were going to win. We had confidence in Gannon. It was just a great feeling.”
Mainland coach Bill Kern said it was a tough loss for his team, but he acknowledged few teams get to end their season with a victory.
Kern said all the teams would be at their best in the playoffs and he credited them for that.
“I think in the playoffs everyone comes to compete from ‘Gami to Triton to Moorestown and obviously today,” he said. “We got everybody’s best shot as well we should and you tip your hat to Ocean City. They came to play. Offensively and defensively today they really competed and earned it.”
He said the defensive miscues hurt, especially in the second inning.
“In big games execution is key. Can you limit the opposing team to their 21 outs and we didn’t really do that today,” he said. “We had a couple opportunities in the middle of the game to cut it in half but Gannon was tremendous in limiting the damage in some of those innings. He made it tough for us.”
Kern is going to miss this Mustang squad.
The 2021 team “is one of the more special groups we’ve ever had here. Aside from on the field, they’re tremendous off the field,” he said. “They’re real character guys and a real testament to what we want of our senior athletes. There are eight of them, too, which makes it even harder. I told them you rarely ever get to have a positive goodbye. Only a handful of teams get to cheer at the end of the season but it makes it especially hard when you love your guys like our coaching staff loves our guys.”