St. James baseball tops Swansea in playoff opener

They don’t care what their hair looks like, but the St. James baseball players sure do care about winning.

With each player sporting a wild and unique hair-do, the Sharks continued their tradition of winning in the playoffs.

Ty King tossed seven quality innings, Nick Delbianco collected three hits at the plate and St. James opened the Class AAA, District VIII playoffs with a 5-2 win Friday over Swansea.

“It’s nice coming out scoring runs early on. We had high energy and swung the bats well early,” said Sharks coach Robbie Centracchio, whose team scored two runs in each of the first two innings to set the tone. “Ty did everything he could to give us the win. He pitched well on the mound. Nick Delbianco had a great game at shortstop, had three big clutch hits and made some good plays at shortstop. It was a good overall team effort.”

As for the haircuts?

“The haircuts are just a tradition; it’s been going on for years. Going into the playoffs, it’s kind of like my hair doesn’t really matter,” Centracchio said. “You’re not going for style, you’re just going for ugly. If we were to lose in the playoffs, everyone shaves their head. But you know, it’s more of a team camaraderie and it’s fun to watch.”

Liam Bloom highlighted the two-run first inning with a double and Delbianco and Robert Gilhuly each had RBI singles in the second inning as St. James went ahead 4-0. With the Sharks out to a quick lead, Centracchio knew his team could ease up a bit.

King let up two runs in the fourth inning on two wild pitches but settled down and held Swansea scoreless the rest of the way. King allowed three hits in a complete-game effort and struck out two for the victory.

“Coming into this game I felt really confident about myself,” said King, who was sporting an imitation of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow’s monk haircut. “Yesterday we had a really good practice and everybody was ready, everybody was focused and we were ready to go. Last year we came into the first round and didn’t do too well and coming out here with a win, it’s pretty good.”

Centracchio reiterated how big it was to take an early lead and hopes his team can do the same as it will travel to play No. 1 Berkeley on Monday.

“It is big scoring early; every team kind of relaxes. When you’re in the playoffs, it’s nice to get a couple of runs on the board and it’s nice to play at home and that’s all due to our guy’s hard work,” he said. “We got the second seed and their guys had to travel four hours and didn’t get in swings. So it’s nice to play at home and we got relaxed and our guys responded like they were supposed to when we got that early lead.”

Should the Sharks win against Berkeley on Monday, they will host the district finals. St. James fell to Berkeley in the first round last season, and King and his teammates want to avenge that loss.

“Last year we lost to Berkeley in the first round and we were hungry for a win today and we just have to come back Monday hungry for more and get that [win],” King said.

This story was originally published May 1, 2015 at 9:37 PM with the headline "St. James baseball tops Swansea in playoff opener."