Basic’s baseball team was forced to sit out the playoffs last season.
The Wolves were a favorite for the Class 5A state title last year. But their championship dreams ended the last week of the regular season, when the team had to forfeit most of its league games for using an ineligible player.
This year, with most of its core back, Basic has taken full advantage of its second chance.
The 5A baseball state tournament begins Thursday at UNR’s Peccole Park. Basic (22-7) earned the South’s No. 1 seed by winning Saturday’s Southern Region title game. The Wolves face Reno High, last year’s state runner-up, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday the opening day of the tournament.
Faith Lutheran (21-16), the South’s No. 2 seed, faces Northern champion Bishop Manogue at 1 p.m. Thursday.
Basic, after an eventful 2024 that featured a coaching change in addition to the forfeits, is on the doorstep of reaching the goal it could not achieve last year.
“It would mean so much, especially with this group just because of everything we’ve been through, feeling like last year we really had a chance to win and that getting taken away, having to forfeit,” junior outfielder Andruw Giles said. “This year, it feels like our redemption year. We had the fire lit all year and it would mean everything for these guys.”
‘Makes us more hungry’
Basic coach Gino DiMaria wasn’t planning on being a head coach again after stepping down at Bishop Gorman following the 2022 season. He joined Scott Baker’s Basic staff as an assistant in 2023.
Basic announced April 10 last year that Baker was “no longer with the team.” DiMaria was named the team’s interim coach. The Wolves kept rolling with DiMaria at the helm and were eyeing a No. 1 seed in the Southern Region playoffs before the forfeits changed everything.
“It hurt bad,” said Giles, an Oregon commit. “That’s why coming into this year, we were all fired up and really motivated to go out and win a state title. It really brought the team together.”
DiMaria took the full-time job over the summer and Basic didn’t miss a beat in 2025. The Wolves have lost just three times since March 27.
Senior Tate Southisene is the engine of a stacked Basic lineup. The USC commit leads the team in batting average (.511), home runs (nine), RBIs (31), runs (46), hits (47) and stolen bases (16).
“Tate is a silent leader. … Tate produces,” DiMaria said of his soft-spoken shortstop. “So when Tate does speak up, the kids listen to him because of the fact that he leads by example. He plays hard, plays hurt. He doesn’t quit. He’s somebody that just comes out and leads by example and he knows his teammates are going to be right there next to him doing their part.”
The Wolves got a boost with the addition of Miami (Florida) commit Matthew Kelley at third base, who Giles called the team’s “glue guy.” Kelley has the second-best batting average on the team (.412). Junior Lincoln Evans leads the Wolves’ pitching staff with a 7-0 record and a 2.45 ERA.
Southisene is the lone remaining player from the Basic team that won the 2022 state tournament, giving the Wolves their seventh state title.
“It makes us more hungry,” Southisene said of what the team has gone through. “It motivated us to get better every single day and now that we do have a chance to compete for a state championship, we need to go out there and win it.”
Strong arms
Two of Basic’s recent losses have come against Faith Lutheran. The Crusaders have a deep pitching staff led by Air Force commit Jordan Watkins, who has a 6-1 record and a 3.25 ERA.
“(The Crusaders) definitely have a bunch of arms and we saw that in (the Southern Region) tournament,” DiMaria said. “They just kept coming (one) after another after another. The pitching staff they have will keep them in the game.”
Basic and Faith Lutheran will also see two of the North’s top arms. Reno (25-13) features UCLA commit Mack Edwards, a 6-foot-5 left-hander, and Bishop Manogue (28-6) has 6-foot-5 right-hander Keenan Dolan, a South Carolina commit.
DiMaria said any of the four teams in the state tournament can win it. But Basic is hoping it can earn the title after all it has gone through.
“This team right here, everybody pulls for (one) another,” DiMaria said. “That’s the greatest thing about this team is we have not (had) one sign of anybody being an individual and doing what they want to do or handle things the way they want to handle it. They’re a team. This is a 100 percent, true team.”
Contact Alex Wright at [email protected]. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
Class 5A baseball state tournament schedule
at UNR’s Peccole Park
(Regions: N=North, S=South)
Thursday, May 15
Game 1: No. 2S Faith Lutheran vs. No. 1N Bishop Manogue, 1 p.m.
Game 2: No. 2N Reno High vs. No. 1S Basic, 3:30 p.m.
Friday
Winners’ bracket
Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 12:30 p.m.
Elimination games
Game 3: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 10 a.m.
Game 5: Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, 30 minutes after Game 4
Saturday
State championship
Game 6: Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 10 a.m. (Game 7 to follow if necessary)
