Varsity Baseball | 5/23/2024 1:09:00 PM

There have been a lot of big comeback victories, wild finishes and state tournament wins in the history of Union Catholic baseball program.

What happened on Wednesday will go down as one the most memorable and dramatic of them all because of the way it unfolded when the Vikings stormed back from a big deficit and defeated Camden Catholic on a walk-off squeeze bunt, 10-9, in the first round of the South Jersey, Non-Public A Tournament in Scotch Plains.

It was the seventh straight win for the Vikings, who will take a 16-8 record on the road when they clash with No. 2 seed St. Augustine on Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the quarterfinal round.

UC, which trailed 7-1 after two innings, was down 9-8 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning.

Freshman Brian McCabe led off the inning with a single and senior Ryan Bevensse followed with a walk. After a pop out, both runners advanced on a passed ball. With one out, junior Josiah Sharpe delivered a bunt single on a squeeze play to score McCabe with the tying run. Then the next batter, junior Chris Wilson, also got down a squeeze bunt, which went over the first basemen's head to score Bevensee with the game winning run and touch off a wild celebration.

Back-to-back squeeze bunts to win a state tournament game in the final at-bat to cap off a huge comeback victory!! It doesn't get much more dramatic or exciting than that!!!

Senior Adrian Rojas earned the victory on the mound for UC with five very strong innings in relief. Rojas allowed just one earned run over 5.1 innings and struck out nine!

Wilson had two hits, two runs scored and three RBI for UC. Sharpe knocked in two runs and scored twice. Senior Nick Pellegrino had two hits and knocked in a run, and Rojas and Bevensee each had an RBI.