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Why They Play the 2008 WCAC Baseball Tournament
by: dicooper

A funny thing happened in the WCAC baseball tournament this year. Neither of the two highly-touted favorites made it to the big dance.

Paul VI enjoyed a number one ranking in some national polls for high school baseball teams. Saint Johns College enjoyed having nine division one baseball recruits on the team, including one that everyone knows is a phenomenon. Neither of those two teams are playing in the WCAC baseball championship, however.

Instead, a tough Bishop Ireton team will face perennial power DeMatha in the most highly contested, and perhaps the most nationally visible baseball seasons in WCAC history. Of course the two favored teams had almost everything to do with the season being highly contested and nationally visible. Paul VI started the season scorching hot and reeled off almost twenty wins before falling to Bishop Ireton in what many believed to be a fluke loss. Saint Johns College had a young man by the name of LJ Hoes that is sure to be on a lot of professional prospect depth charts because of his five-tool skill set.

Both Saint Johns College and Paul VI were expected to meet in the championship round of the WCAC play-offs because they were the best on paper. Fans and sportscasters alike penciled the two teams in, and polls revealed that the two were the favorites early on. I suppose that baseball is unlike any other sport in that the team status can change from day to day, just like the pitchers. Some hitters can go into slumps and not produce as they are expected, or more specifically when they are expected. Timing has a lot to do with baseball. Baseball is a pastoral game that doesn't rely on any clock, however the timing needed to hit a baseball with a round bat cannot be argued.

Of course it has been said before that this is the reason why they play the game and nothing embodies this maxim more than the 2008 WCAC baseball tournament. The DeMatha team has been plagued by errors of all kinds, but the Stags woke up their bats to rally the team when they were down against a powerful Good Counsel team. The Bishop Ireton Cardinals overcame the adversity of going up against a nationally ranked team and believed in themselves when others would not. The contest between the two teams will happen this Thursday, May 8 at Shirley Povich field and the only certainty is that we will have a new unexpected champion in WCAC baseball this year.

This has been an outstanding baseball season because of what people typically call upsets, but I contend that these were not upsets at all. Paul VI lost to Bishop Ireton twice, once during the regular season and once during the play-offs semi-finals. DeMatha beat Saint Johns College three times this year, including a 20-6 mercy rule, pounding in the semi-finals. Bishop Ireton was one game under .500 when the play-offs began and DeMatha had several losses at the beginning of the season. Neither of these teams looked all that stellar but they both grinded the season out and improved when they could. You have to love baseball play-offs that are one game per round.

Essentially you are playing your starting pitching rotation against every other team in the tournament with a one game series, one game loss elimination tournament. The decisions of who to start becomes all important. On the one hand you want to start your best pitchers in order to get to the next round. On the other hand you will need to pace your talent placement on the mound to coincide with what could be a championship command performance. If you blow all of your starting pitching talent early then you'll have nothing left for a championship game. If you use too little of your premium talent on the mound then you'll never make it to the big game anyway. It is the classic catch-22 of professional baseball played out in dramatic high school fashion.

The fact is that we can't play more than one game series' in high school baseball because kids are in the midst of finals and must go on to better things. But this fact, almost more than the ability to hit a baseball with a round bat, has more to do with the timing of championship runs than any other: any team can beat any team any time in baseball. There is no clear cut dominance because if a great team played a lousy team 100 times they might only win 75 games. Balls are dropped. Throwing errors are made. Home runs are smashed. Fat pitches are whiffed. And the game goes on because nobody knows what is going to happen next.

Comments:

i love it dicoop...you are so absolutely true on everything. you basically said what i was trying to say about pitching in a forum, which seems like the one lesson that pvi and sjc have not learned over the years, as their early playoff exits the past 3 years have left their best pitcher off the hill, resulting in missing the ship. (hoehn in 06, LJ in 08/ polcari too long in 06, etc.) too many teams make DEADLY assumptions about teams in the playoffs. Dematha and Ireton planned it right this year, throwing their number 2's in quarters, number 1's in semis, and whoevers left now (#3 and the kitchen sink) in the ship.

great blog

by: batsnballs08 May 7 2008 9:36PM

PVI did not save any pitching. You can make that case They threw Tyler Costello, who was 7-0 with an ERA under 2.00. (that kid will be an absolute stud by the way), and brought in Greg Wiegand. Both were 1st team WCAC pitchers. PVI lost the game because of a couple bad bounces and leaving men in scoring position late in the game.

by: 4Loveofthegame May 8 2008 5:33PM

Great post and very true. Baseball is unlike any other sport because the pitching matchup plays such a huge role in the outcome of the game. Charlie Sullivan always played the tourney going with his #3 arm in the quarters, #2 in the semis and #1 in the finals. It won him 14 titles. I worry that burning our #2 in the quarterfinals and #1 in the semis will come back to bite us b/c I hear Ireton still has their #2 ready to go. Regardless, Sean has done a terrific job in getting these guys to the championship and we have a great chance to win tonight!

by: lifer May 8 2008 5:36PM

Fantastic blog dicoop. This is why baseball is great, anything can happen.

by: pbj May 8 2008 11:58PM