Delgado sweeps through Region XXIII tournament to claim another title

For Delgado’s baseball program, it never gets old but it is old hat.

The Dolphins captured the Region XXIII championship for a 15th consecutive season, defeating Nunez Community College 9-7 Friday to win the region tournament.

Delgado swept through the tournament, winning Thursday by a 3-0 margin over Baton Rouge Community College before defeating Nunez 9-5.

After a two-hour rain delay Friday, the Dolphins held off a determined Nunez squad to win for the seventh time in eight games between the two teams this season.

Rainy skies ➡️ trophy vibes. 🐬🆙🏆 pic.twitter.com/AlUcIOfObD

— Delgado Athletics (@delgadodolphins) May 4, 2024

“It’s not easy,” Delgado Coach Joe Scheuermann said. “Every championship is different. This club really went through a little valley of sin, I would say, and really bounced back good the last two weeks. I’ve got to tip my cap to the way we played defensively. We got key hits but we played real good defense down the stretch.”

Sophomore Logan O’Neill of John Curtis Christian is the only returning starter from last season’s NJCAA World Series squad.

O’Neill did his part Friday with a single, two walks and a stolen base.

Most significantly, O’Neill drove ball to deep center field which Dorien Jackson raced back on to make the catch falling down. On the play, Rhett Centanni of Archbishop Rummel and Eli Booth of Brother Martin both scored, a rarity, which tied the game 3-3 in the third inning after the Dolphins trailed 3-0 early.

“That’s never happened to me before,” O’Neill said. “I saw a fastball high and I want to get it. I almost got it out of the park. They did a really good job on the bases of tagging up to score two. It was good base-running by Eli and Coach Joe sent him.”

Blaise Lalonde of St. Amant was outstanding in relief of starting pitcher Connor Achee of Catholic of Pointe Coupee. Lalonde went 3 1/3 innings, allowing no runs on two hits with a walk and five strikeouts to pick up his third win of the season, remaining unbeaten.

“He shut them down,” Scheuermann said.

Though he surrendered his first run of the season in his 14th appearance freshman Brady Schmidt of Archbishop Rummel picked up his seventh save with a three-inning stint, surrendering three runs.

“I’ll take a little bit of the blame for Schmitty,” Schuermann said. “We haven’t used him a whole lot, he was probably a little bit stale and we’ve never used him for three innings. We asked him to do some things he hadn’t been doing and that’s my fault but that’s the confidence I have in the young man. He’s been nails for us all year long and he’ll be nails the next time he goes out.”

Jack Walker of Byrd High, the son of former LSU and Major League star Todd Walker, drove in a pair of runs while Centanni had two hits, walked and was hit by a pitch to pace the offense.

In the win over Baton Rouge Thursday, ace Luke Barbier, a Southeastern Louisiana commit from Central Catholic, pitched a complete game two-hitter. Barbier walked just two and struck out nine to improve to 8-4. Walker, Josh Eames of John Curtis Christian and Giovanni Licciardi of Jesuit each drove in a run.

In the 9-5 win over Nunez Thursday, Michael Hotard of St. Charles Catholic went five innings to pick up the win while Morgan Sauber of Lakeshore and Remy Marsh of Mandeville were outstanding in relief. Eames had two hits and three RBI, Christian Westcott of Lakeshore had a two-run double and Centanni added three hits and scored twice.

Delgado (38-14) is getting it done in many ways. It was pitching against Baton Rouge, hitting in the first win over Nunez and good defense in the final win over Nunez.

Hall of Fame coach Joe Scheuermann now has 1,174 wins in his illustrious career and is in search of more.

After being bracketed with the Missouri and Oklahoma region champions for several years, Delgado has a new challenge this year.

The Dolphins are going to an eight-team bracket in the South District Championship at Oxford, Alabama beginning Thursday.

“You’re going to have to win some more games than normal,” Scheuermann said. “I like the fact that our parents will be able to travel with us. I like our chances.”

The good news for Nunez is the Pelicans (23-24) are also going to Oxford to compete as one of the eight teams, the first postseason appearance in program history under fine coach Glenn Powell.

The Pelicans have good hitters and speed with Noah Detillier of Lutcher, Dorien Jackson of Breaux Bridge, Ben Harris of Brother Martin and Colin Cure of Holy Cross, among others.

Nunez will play at 1 p.m. Thursday while Delgado will play at 4 p.m. to start the regional, which covers five days with the winner advancing to Grand Junction, Colorado May 25-June 1.

Though the Dolphins are young, they are capable and have the wisdom and knowledge of Scheuermann and having been there and done that.

“We have a lot of young talent coming around and a lot boys doing what they need to do,” O’Neill said.

Though the Pelicans have not been there previously, they have good players and enthusiasm as a program making progress annually.