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.
“If you happen to be lucky enough to win, you’re gonna be playing every day and that’s no way to play in the playoffs,” McClancy coach Nick Melito said.
That’s what made Fordham Prep’s 9-1 win over Iona Prep on Friday at Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains so important. The victory broke a first-place tie atop CHSAA Bronx/Westchester and gives Iona Prep a bye into the eight-team, championship round of the playoffs, which begins Wednesday.
Fordham Prep plays on Saturday and Sunday in the seeding round – two non-elimination games to determine spots for the four regular-season division winners.
“It’s huge,” said Rams right-hander Sean McNamara, who tossed a gem Friday. “It saves a lot when it comes to our pitching staff. We’re a little short already.”
Iona Prep, though, has to play two games in a third-round, best-of-three series Monday at Forham University 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.
“We have the numbers,” Iona Prep coach Fred Gallo said of his pitching staff. “We might be capable.”
Xaverian, the defending CHSAA intersectional champion and Brooklyn/Queens division winner, should have had a break heading into the championship round. The seeding tournament was supposed to be over Friday, giving Piccola’s pitchers ample rest for Wednesday. But then the Fordham Prep-Iona Prep tiebreaker – the winner would play Xaverian in the seeding tournament – was postponed twice.
So now Xaverian has to play Saturday against Fordham Prep and again Sunday in the seeding tournament before coming back Wednesday for the double-elimination championship round.
“It’s disappointing,” Piccola said. “It hurts your pitching.”
CHSAA baseball commissioner Wally Stampfel said there was no other way. The state mandates that a baseball season can only be a certain amount of weeks and all the cramming the next few days is to get everything in before the end date.
“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.”
Three years ago, Stampfel said, Fordham Prep beat Stepinac for the CHSAA title on the last possible day of the state season. So rain is not exclusive to 2012.
“It’s obviously been real bad timing,” Stampfel said. “But it’s not the first time. It seems like it happens every two or three years. … The bottom line is, everyone is in the same boat.”