WILMINGTON — Up until the fifth inning, Cape Henlopen High was in good position.

The numbers on the scoreboard only read 1-0 in their favor, but starting pitcher Gage Joseph was putting up a strong effort on the mound and his teammates behind him were playing great defense to support him.

But in the bottom of the fifth inning, Salesianum School tied the game 1-1 and then used a five-run sixth inning rally to take control of the game on their way to a 6-1 victory in the second round of the DIAA baseball state tournament Saturday afternoon.

“We jumped out and scored in the first inning and we felt like we were cruising pretty good, making good defensive plays and then we get into that sixth inning there and we make an error and then a couple things don’t go our way and next thing you know they’ve put up six runs,” said Cape coach Ben Evick.

“You’ve gotta give them credit, they put some balls in play and played hard, but we felt like we competed and we were right there,” he added. “One inning just kind of went south for us, a couple close calls went their way and then that’s the game. That’s how it goes.”

The ninth-seeded Vikings (14-6) collected six hits, two each off the bat of junior Josh Reinhold and sophomore Timmy Hitchcock. They had just come off a 12-0 shutout of Sanford School in Thursday’s first round.

Eighth-seeded Salesianum (13-5) moves on to Tuesday night’s quarterfinal round against 17th-seeded Caravel Academy. The winner earns a chance to play at Frawley Stadium in Thursday night’s semifinal round.

Joseph, only a freshman making his first playoff start at the high school level, went five innings, surrendering three runs (only one earned) on four hits.

“Gage is a tough kid, he’s a good competitor and he doesn’t get rattled — he just keeps delivering,” Evick said. “You have to feel for him, he threw really, really well — he gave up two unearned runs. That being said, that kid’s a competitor and he’s going to keep dealing. We’re excited for him and his future.”

Salesianum’s Zack Czarnecki tossed a complete game, surrendering one unearned run on six hits with five strikeouts. Czarnecki threw a complete game shutout with five strikeouts in Salesianum’s 6-0 regular season win over Cape just two weeks prior.

“It was kind of similar for both of us, they hit some balls right at people and we hit some balls right at people,” said Evick. “On both sides, I feel like the guys threw well. He (Czarnecki) threw well today, he throws a lot of strikes and at this level when you’re throwing strikes you’re going to get outs.”

Justin Marsh and Nick Cox also collected hits for the Vikings. Cox and Tyler Husbands combined for one inning of relief.

After Hitchcock’s leadoff single in the top of the first inning, the starting third baseman moved to second base on an error, advanced to third on a fly out by Tyler Husbands and then came around to score when Hunter Rauch reached base on an error.
Joseph kept Sallies off the board through four innings before senior Ben Venema drove in junior Ryan James on an RBI single to right field to tie the game, 1-1.

Cape left two base runners on in the top of the sixth inning, missing out on an opportunity to regain the lead.

A leadoff error in right field put a base runner on third base and junior Conor Campbell drove in the run on an RBI single to center field on the next at bat to give Salesianum their first lead of the day.

Consecutive walks loaded the bases and Sallies then plated two more runs on a bases-loaded walk and a bases-loaded balk in two straight at bats to extend the lead to 4-1.

Junior Quinn Bartkowski’s two-run single a couple at bats later capped Salesianum’s five-run rally.

Czarnecki came back out in the top of the seventh to record the final three outs and send his team to the quarterfinals.

Heading into the season, Cape had just two players who had previous varsity experience and, with a young squad this year, Evick expressed his excitement for the program’s future after the tough loss.

“We just keep telling our guys that we just have to keep getting better,” he said. “We’re really young this year and having that COVID year where no one played was difficult. I think this tournament is wide open due to that, with guys not getting that year together … When we started the year we had two guys who had any varsity experience, so we’re really proud of our kids. They battled all year long, so we have to walk out with our heads held high.”