Big night of fun

Schalick seniors celebrate some special moments, big win, in the complex where their earliest baseball memories were forged

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

ELMER – If Evan Sepers were making the call, the Schalick baseball team would be wearing the throwback uniforms they sported for Senior Night at the Elmer Little League complex the rest of the year.

The first time the senior outfielder wore the green-and-gray vested unis the Cougars brought out Monday against Bridgeton, he went 2-for-2 with a pair of doubles as a freshman against Woodstown in the Elmer Classic. On this special night, on that same field, he went 2-for-2 with a double and his first official home run, and threw an inning and a third of no-hit relief in a 17-4 win.

“I’m batting 1.000 in them,” Sepers said. 

The Cougars hadn’t worn them since that Woodstown game four years ago; coach Sean O’Brien only recently rediscovered them. The only problem was they only had 15 sets and they had 16 players. Fortunately, Luke Pokrovsky, the headliner of last year’s state semifinals team now at Penn, still had his jersey and brought it back so the team could be fully fitted. That jersey went to Bo Schalick.

“I don’t know how old they are; they’re before my time,” O’Brien said. “The kids liked them. They bugged me to wear them. I literally gave them out after school today.”

“We’ve had those for a long time,” catcher turned designated hitter Ricky Watt said. “I know a couple guys on the team their parents wore them back in the day. We always talked about wearing them.”

The throwback uniforms were only part of the Cougars’ funnest game of the year.

Freed from the pressure of playing a division opponent on Senior Night, the Cougars chose a traditional opponent and played on a field adjacent to where many of the players forged their earliest baseball memories. It was their second win at the Elmer LL complex this season and fifth in the last two years.

It was a chance to give players an opportunity to play some other position , like those who either hadn’t pitched since their freshmen year or hadn’t been on the mound at all.

Junior Bert Strain started the night and worked the first, striking out two. The rest of the night belonged to the seniors. Strain was followed to the mound by J.T. Fleming and Sepers, neither of whom had pitched since their freshmen year; Cooper Willoughby, who last remembers pitching in a JV game his freshman year but never on varsity; and Ethan Quiles, a senior called up to the varsity for the occasion. They combined on a one-hitter.

“They asked me in the beginning of the year about throwing on Senior Night,” O’Brien said. “I thought about it, but then with the circumstances of how many games we’re playing this week, we kind of needed to. We needed to conserve our pitching anyway, so it was a fun way and a productive way to keep our pitching where it needed to be.”

Fleming pitched the second, giving up an unearned run and striking out two. Willoughby worked two-thirds of an inning in the third, charged with three runs, and said he didn’t want to see his ERA at the end of it. 

“It’s been a really long time,” Willoughby said. “The first half of freshman year I threw like two or three games. It looked about like that, too. I hadn’t pitched in a while and I was looking forward to it. It was just a fun night. OB wanted to let all the guys pitch who don’t traditionally pitch. It was a good time.”

Sepers worked the longest of the five pitchers, didn’t allow a hit, struck out two and walked two. He threw 7 1/3 innings in four games as a freshman. In his last outing before Monday he went 3 1/3 against Salem in 2023, giving up two hits, two runs and striking out five. He has a career ERA under 1.75.

“When I went out to pitch I was just thinking ‘have fun,’” he said. “It’s my senior night, we’re not playing the best team but everybody’s having fun. I was just trying to throw strikes. I threw two off-speed pitches and they both went really high and outside, so other than that I threw fastballs.”

He figures that closed the book on his pitching career, unless RCSJ-Cumberland decides it wants to use him on the mound next spring. Of course, he’ll always have his hitting. With his two hits against the Bulldogs, he’s now 11 shy of 100 for his career.

Quiles wrapped up the night and set the Bulldogs down in order in the fifth, recording his first career strikeout for the last out of the game.

“J.T. was a guy I thought would give me more innings, but he settled in,” O’Brien said. “Once he got going he threw really well. Back in his freshman year in games we were way ahead or way behind he was like my cleanup guy. He’d come in and throw strikes for me just to get us out of innings. He always did that for us when he was a freshman.

“Cooper hadn’t thrown. He wasn’t finishing and was leaving everything up. He did a good job with the situation he was put in. Evan had pitched before. I knew Evan would be OK out there, just kind of get used to throwing again. Ethan did a great job. It was awesome.”

If there is fun in scoring a lot of runs, then the Cougars had a ton of it. All nine spots in the lineup scored at least once. Ten of the 11 hitters who batted had a hit and 10 of the 11 scored.

Watt rediscovered his power stroke. After hitting four homers in his first five games of the season, he ended a nine-game homerless drought with a pair of two-run shots and finished 3-for-3 with five RBIs. He drove in the Cougars’ first run with a single in the first.

“I just went through a little bit of a period where I was struggling a little bit; it happens,” he said. “Not seeing the ball as well. I think I got a little bit back on my feet tonight. It’s good to get back in the swing of things.”

Sepers’ home run, a three-run shot in the fourth inning, was his first in 220 high school at-bats and more than 270 plate appearances. He hit a ball everyone insistent cleared a snow fence at Clayton last year ruled a grounds-rule double and hit one in a scrimmage at Highland this year.

“That was unreal,” he said. “Off the bat I was thinking to myself this is either going to go over the fence and I knew it was going off the fence off the bat or I’m going to look like a fool when the kid catches the ball. I’m very glad it happened on senior night. It was hard not to have a smile on my face the entire time I was running around the bases.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“We grew up playing together and he always used to hit them out of the field right over there,” Watt said, pointing to the Little League fields on the other side of the batting cage. “I remember him hitting three in one game actually. I’m surprised he hadn’t connected with one yet. It was really cool to see.”

“I felt like it was coming,” O’Brien said. “Even at our place or here I think he was going to get one eventually, so it’s good he got it here, especially tonight on Senior Night.”

It gets a little more challenging for the Cougars from here. They potentially have four straight road games this rest of the week. They go to Overbrook Tuesday for a big Diamond Division game, to Doane Academy for their Diamond Classic opener Wednesday, to Collingswood Friday and possibly at second round Diamond Classic game at Clearview.

Whatever happens in the week ahead, they’ll always have the happy memory of Monday night to carry them through.