Chaminade’s baseball team continues resurgence with win over Pace in Duffin’s final game

Anyone who says you can’t do a 180-degree turn with a program never met Mark McCoy.

After enjoying four years of success at West Boca Raton, McCoy was hired last summer to try and reignite a struggling Chaminade-Madonna baseball program that was coming off a dismal 8-16 season.

There were no new players that transferred in, just a “roll-up-your-sleeves” and hard work approach that McCoy put in place last fall. And the Lions saw the fruits of all that hard work pay off on Wednesday night.

Chaminade (15-9), making its first regional playoff appearance in a decade and the No. 5 seed in the region, kept its momentum by cruising to a 9-6 victory over the No. 4-seeded Monsignor Pace Spartans in a Region 4-3A quarterfinal.

The score was deceiving.

Chaminade, thanks to a strong outing by starting pitcher Manny Delarosa, led by as much as 9-2 through five-and-a-half innings. The Lions bullpen struggled slightly as Pace rallied with a run in the sixth and three more in the seventh but the tying run never came to the plate when the final out was finally recorded.

Before that, the Lions had feasted on a bushel full of Pace mistakes including walks, balks and errors to build their big lead.

McCoy and his players will have an even bigger challenge on Saturday when they travel south to take on long-time state power Westminster Christian, ranked No. 5 in the state regardless of classification, in a Region 4-3A semifinal at 3:30 p.m.

“It all starts with the senior leadership,” said McCoy when asked about how he engineered such a quick turnaround. “All three of our seniors (Eddie Blanco, Joe Billisi and Jack Miller) are amazing kids. They came in when we met for the first time last August and they were like ‘this is what we want for the program’ so we actually named our fall program ‘Player Driven.’ We had a vision for the program and stuck to it. We worked out five days a week, put on over 500 pounds of muscle because we were weak and didn’t throw hard and me, along with my coaching staff having been there before going to regionals at West Boca, knew what it takes to compete at this level because none of this happens by accident.”

After falling behind in the first inning when Pace plated a run on a leadoff triple by Jacob Poletto and subsequent Rober Kramer single, Chaminade took the lead for good with a two-out rally in the third that brought in a pair of runs. After two easy innings, Pace starter Dylan Llanes, after recording the first two outs, began struggling as he walked Gage Agate, balked him down to second and then balked him home after Agate had stolen third.

He then walked Trace Zalman who stole second and came home when Miguel Rosa blooped a double down the right field line. The worse inning for Pace came in the fourth when the Lions, despite only getting one base hit (a Jon Gourrier base hit to right) chased Llanes by scoring four more runs (thanks to walks and errors) to open up a 6-1 lead.

“All props go to Coach McCoy,” said Billisi, Chaminade’s first baseman and team captain. “He instilled a winning mentality in us from day one. Being team captain comes with a lot of responsibilities, always having to set an example for the others. At times it was stressful but at the end of the day, I just wanted to try and help lead this team to the success we’ve enjoyed. Tonight, to come in here and beat Pace on their field in the regional playoffs was another big step for us and now we’re looking forward to another big challenge on Saturday.”

DUFFIN’S LAST GAME

On the flip side was Pace and a tough end for longtime head coach Tom Duffin.

Duffin announced he would be stepping down earlier this season after leading the program over the last quarter century that included a pair of state titles in 2006 and 2018.

The Spartans, who finished 19-8, started the season 12-0 and it appeared maybe there might be a little magic dust in the air for Duffin’s last season. But the bottom dropped out on the Spartans from that point on as they wound up losing their district championship game to COHEA on their home field before losing to Chaminade on Wednesday.

“Not much you can say, hats off to Chaminade, they came in here and played a solid game tonight,” Duffin said. “We started the season off hot but then caught a slide, tried to bounce back, got a couple of wins here and there but we never really recovered. Just one of those things, when you go bad, you go bad and we went bad in every facet. We didn’t pitch well, didn’t hit well down the stretch and when you get a combination of that, that’s pretty much it.”

But Duffin fiercely defended his players indicating that he actually felt they overachieved this season.

“I really loved this group of kids that I went out with,” said Duffin. “At the beginning of the year, I was thinking we might win maybe six or seven games. We didn’t have the big names or high profile players that Pace is used to having but yet they won some big games. They just ran out of gas down the stretch. The wheels fell off and we just could never put them back on. Things don’t always end like a Disney movie. Sometimes they just end.”

This story was originally published May 9, 2024 at 11:11 AM.