Central Coach Says Seekonk Refrained to Line Up Games

Seekonk baseball is off to a 3-0 start and will look to notch their fourth win on Friday when they visit Case High School in Swansea. Thanks to the hot start, it is unlikely Seekonk will need to worry about the .500 record required to qualify for postseason play.

However, as Patch , the team needs to finish at least 9-8 due to the loss of three games before the season started.

"They could have had their .500 right there. They never tried to contact us," said Dave Hanson Sr., the coach of Central High School and father of former Seekonk coach Dave Hanson Jr. He says that his school was never contacted after his son was fired to confirm the game previously scheduled between the two schools.

"That game's gone by the boards. There was never confirmation on Seekonk's part that they wanted to play," said Hanson on Wednesday. It is unclear whether the ball was in Seekonk's court to call Central to confirm.

Both Seekonk athletic director Ray Grant and baseball coach Joe Demelo declined to comment on the schedule issues, with Grant saying only, "If you want to talk about the 3-0 start I'd love to talk about that."

Hanson said he was upset at the handling of his son's termination, but did not rule out the possibility that his team would have played Seekonk. "It would have depended on how they’d approach me. Depending on how I was contacted and everything else," said Hanson.

Seekonk has made no acknowledgement of who cancelled the games with Tolman, Shea and Central high schools that are no longer being played this season. The only acknowledgement of the situation came from Demelo, who only said "We had twenty games and now we have 17."

Hanson, who said he had read Patch's coverage of the situation, said of Seekonk High School, "It’s a lie if they say they tried to contact Central to play."

As of today, the games between Seekonk and the three Rhode Island schools do not appear on any of the four official schedules for the schools, as kept by the RIIL and the MIAA.

John Dias, a former athletic director at schools in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, says it is difficult to know where the breakdown occurred. "The games may never have been confirmed, or they may have been cancelled," says Dias.