Cape baseball ready for season of seniors
The Cape baseball squad handled St. Michaels in a Maryland-Delaware scrimmage March 11, when the Vikings’ bats were hot and the pitchers were attacking the strike zone in the first scrimmage of the 2025 season.
“I was really happy with how we played today,” said head coach Ben Evick. “Being this early in the preseason, we did a lot of things well. Our pitching was outstanding, and offensively, we put the ball in play hard and forced them to make plays. Jaxon [Clampitt] had a great day, smashing a home run and striking out five in his two innings of work on the mound.”
The Vikings went 16-3 in 2024, falling to Middletown 5-4 in the DIAA tournament second round.
The Vikings return nine seniors to this season’s roster, and Evick is looking forward to their guidance on the field.
“We feel pretty good returning nine seniors,” Evick said. “We feel like we have a lot of leadership with the group, and they’ve put in a lot of work in the offseason preparing for this year. With our pitching, we feel confident we’ll be in every game, and our offense is showing a lot of life. Guys are competing for positions, which makes for a great atmosphere at practice. We have three scrimmages scheduled, so we will get a good look at how guys will respond in game situations.”
Returners with big bats include Jase Mitchell, Clampitt, Brady Kosc and Trey Hitchcock. Joining them will be sophomores Aaden Johnson and Dom Mangini, and junior Robbie Payton.
“Offensively, we feel like we have a lot of guys that can drive the ball and cause havoc,” Evick said. “We have pretty good team speed, so we feel like we have the ability to put pressure on teams running the bases as well. We have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks to prepare for game one. It’s exciting to see these guys come together on the field.”
“As a team, we lost a lot of talent last year to graduation, but we returned a senior class of nine guys who are all bought in, and I think we’ve got a lot of young talent that’s going to push the seniors to work hard and stay in check throughout the year,” said Mitchell. “As far as our pitching staff, I’d put our guys up against any other rotation in the state, as we have three dominant seniors who can all go out and dominate. Hitting-wise, I believe top to bottom we have one of the best lineups in the state and will be a tough matchup for any rotation in the state.”
“I think we have really good chances to get into the DIAA playoffs as long as we are hot hitting-wise at the end of the season,” said Clampitt. “We have what I think is the best pitching staff in the state, and combined with scoring a lot of runs, it will be hard to beat us. We will definitely have a chance to make it to Frawley.”
The Vikings open the 2025 season Thursday, March 27, against Milford at Cape’s Chris Short Field.
