(cover photo of Eric Genther via Rhode Island Athletics)

After Bonner alum Tommy Bradley captured a D3 JUCO National Championship with RCSJ-Gloucester and Marple Newtown’s Owen Mathes hit a walk-off single to win a D1 Club Baseball National Championship for Penn State along with Justin Brennan (Marple Newtown), Pat Mannix (Radnor), Austin Marx (Radnor), Drew Lamonica (Conestoga), and Joe McGinnis (SJP/Broomall), we are down to just NCAA Division 1.

Both of those teams mentioned above won their third consecutive, so congratulations to all of those guys. As a Penn State club alum who was a part of the first of those three, it’s very cool to see all of the success they continue to have.

Naturally, since it is the highest level of college baseball, we do not have too many guys in this tournament, but we have enough to keep you entertained.

So let’s dive into who has a chance to make it to Omaha this year.

We also need to give a quick shoutout to “the pride of Newtown Edgmont Little League” and Malvern Prep alum Mike Rooney, who will be hosting ESPN’s version of NFL RedZone once again covering all of the College Baseball Regionals. Tune into “Squeeze Play” on ESPN all weekend long for awesome coverage from the best in the business.

If you want to watch one individual game, you can find them on ESPN or ESPN+.

Eric Genther, Rhode Island (Drexel Hill/Haverford School)

Eric Genther has waited a long time for this moment.

Not only is this the first time the senior outfielder is playing in the NCAA Tournament, but it’s the first time that Rhode Island even finished over .500 in his four years with the Rams. They went 38-20 to capture the A10 Championship over George Mason last Saturday.

Genther has been a starter since day one for this program and has produced every season. He is a career .307 hitter with 26 college homers and 159 RBI in just 212 games. He also has a career .907 OPS as well.

For those unfamiliar with the NCAA Tournament, I’ll break it down for you here:

• The first round of the tournament, which has 64 teams, are 16 four-team tournaments throughout the country hosted by the best 16 teams. It is your classic double elimination tournament.

• Genther and Rhode Island are in the “Baton Rouge” regional, so they will play all their games at Alex Box stadium, home of the LSU Tigers.

• They will be the #3 seed in that region and take on #2 Dallas Baptist Friday night at 7:30. Others teams in the regional are #1 LSU and #4 Little Rock.

• Should Rhode Island win that regional, they would take on the winner of the Clemson regional in “Super Regionals”, which is a best-of-three series where the winner goes to the eight-team College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

As you’ll see on this list, we do have a couple of guys on different teams here, but none are more important to their teams’ success than Genther. He’s a middle of the order bat, expect to see him in the two-hole.

I really hope that this exposure can help Genther hear his name called in the 2025 MLB Draft. I think he has shown enough to get picked but he doesn’t play in a major conference so people may question the competition. If he has a big weekend against some bigger name schools, he can turn that into a professional career.

Haverford High’s Ethan Mahan is also on this URI team, but he missed the whole season with an injury so we will not be seeing him in this tournament.

Andrew Healy, Duke (Glen Mills/Penn Charter)

One of the rare Delco natives to play at a non-Delco school that isn’t Malvern Prep, Andrew Healy is currently a junior on the Duke Blue Devils out of the ACC.

Duke will be playing in the Athens regional hosted by the University of Georgia. They are joined by Binghamton and Oklahoma State there. They are the #2 seed and will play #3 OK State Friday night at 6:00 PM.

After excellent first years at Duke where Healy had ERA’s of 2.32 and 3.76, Healy has really struggled this year.

He has a 7.29 ERA in 42 innings. His walks are up, his strikeouts are down, and it is not been the caliber of year that the draft hopeful lefty envisioned. None of that matters now, of course.

The good news for Healy is that everyone has a clean slate now. In these regionals, every pitcher in the dugout may be needed at some point, especially if Duke is coming out of the loser’s bracket. Hopefully Healy gets the chance to turn around the narrative for his season.

Derek Volz, Holy Cross (Aston/Episcopal)

After an excellent 2023 spring as a senior at Episcopal, Derek Volz fell off the map a bit in the Delco world as he went to The Hill School for a postgrad year. That year helped him get to this point now as he is a very important bullpen arm for Holy Cross, who defeated The Haverford School’s Kevin Reavey and Army in the Patriot League title to earn their spot in NCAA Regionals.

Volz has a 5.36 ERA on the year, but a couple of tough outings have really skewed that ERA. He is one of their most trusted relievers and we will very likely see him at some point this weekend.

Holy Cross will be in the Chapel Hill Regional hosted by the University of North Carolina out of the ACC. They will be the #4 seed and play the #1 seed Tar Heels Friday at noon. They are joined by #2 Oklahoma and #3 Nebraska.

Holy Cross is certainly the heavy underdog going into this weekend, playing against an ACC, SEC, and B1G team this weekend but we’ll see if they are able to find away to shock the world.

Michael Anderson, Arkansas (Havertown/Bonner)

It has been a bit of a tough year for Bonner alum Michael Anderson.

It looked like he may earn the starting first base job at perennial power Arkansas out of the SEC after transferring from Rhode Island, but he never really got much of a chance after an early injury sidelined him. He received just eight at bats and went 0/8, a pretty small sample size to work with.

Whether he stays at Arkansas or not is TBD, but it doesn’t seem like we will see him this weekend. Arkansas went 43-13 and is hosting their own regional. They will take on North Dakota State on Friday at 2:00 PM and are joined by Creighton and Kansas.

Arkansas has been knocking on the doorstep for years, and even if Anderson doesn’t see any playing time, it would be pretty cool if he gets to be a part of their first ever National Championship.

Ian White Jr, East Carolina (Malvern/Haverford School)

Next up we have Ian White Jr, a former Delco Baseball Now intern from The Haverford School, as a reliever for East Carolina.

Unfortunately, we think that White may be injured. The 2024 First Team All-Delco selection was having an awesome season and was getting very high leverage innings as a freshman for the AAC Champion Pirates but has not thrown a pitch since April 19th. He only threw four pitches in that outing, so it’s fair to assume he may have suffered an injury.

It’s really a shame because he had a 3.60 ERA and had been very lockdown so far. We can hope that White has been recovering and preparing for a playoff run, but I think it is more realistic that we do not see him at all this weekend. Fingers crossed.

East Carolina, which is located in North Carolina, will not have to travel far as they are headed to Conway, South Carolina to take on Florida on Friday at noon and they are joined by Coastal Carolina and Fairfield… more on Fairfield right now.

Connor Scanlan, Fairfield (Ridley/Haverford School) and Lucien Burger (Broomall/Marple Newtown)

Lastly, on Fairfield University out of the MAAC, we have two 2024 First Team All-Delco selection from our list including infielder Connor Scanlan from The Haverford School and outfielder Lucien Burger from Marple Newtown.

Burger will not see the field as he redshirted this year. You may recall he missed the end of Marple Newtown’s playoff run last season after he injured his shoulder, tried to play through it, and injured his other shoulder in the process. Hopefully we get to see him out there next year at full strength.

It’s also pretty unlikely that we see much of Scanlan, although it is possible. He had limited playing time this year but went 4/12 in his at bats with three walks as well. He hasn’t had an at bat since April 29th so it feels unlikely he hits barring an injury, but he’s a very smooth fielder defensively so perhaps we could see him out there if a game gets out of hand.

Fairfield will be in a pretty loaded regional in Conway, South Carolina hosted by Coastal Carolina. As mentioned above East Carolina will also be in that regional as will Florida. Fairfield plays Coastal Carolina on Friday at 6:00 PM.