Unfinished business: Canceled season leaves records left unbroken for Bellefonte baseball’s CJ Funk
Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a series chronicling some of the biggest missed storylines of the 2020 spring high school sports season in Centre County.
This is far from how C.J. Funk imagined his high school baseball career coming to a close. The Bellefonte senior was ready to help the Red Raiders make a deep postseason run, deeper than the team had been in his first three years with the varsity squad.
He was going to make one final run with his teammates and collect some personal accolades and records along the way, although those were far less important.
He’d then take that team and individual success with him to the University of Pittsburgh, where he’ll play baseball at the next level.
Instead, Funk is at home awaiting word on when his life can find some level of normalcy. He, like so many other athletes around the nation, had his senior year stripped away from him without warning or closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ever-positive Funk took the loss in stride, but admitted there was plenty of pain that came with it.
“It’s been a great ride here,” Funk said. “I’ve done a lot of great things here and a lot of people have helped me along the way. Short term, I’m upset I couldn’t play my senior year.”
One of the first things Funk did when he found out the season was canceled was reach out to his five fellow seniors.
Funk’s message was simple. He wanted his teammates to know he felt their pain. The bond he’d formed with them on the diamond was special
“I just said thank you for everything,” he said. “I’ve kept in touch with all of them.”
This wasn’t just the end of the road for Funk’s time on the diamond with his teammates, either. One of Funk’s best friends, Matthew Reese, is an outfielder for Bald Eagle Area. Like Funk, Reese is a senior and won’t have the opportunity to play his final year of high school baseball. He’ll continue his baseball career in college at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, but is unlikely to play with or against his friend again.
Reese, who said he and Funk have been friends since birth thanks to the friendship between their mothers, is going to miss being with his friend on the diamond, even if it meant they were opponents.
“I think it’s more fun for me (to play Funk),” Reese said. “When you know the guys on the other team you have more fun and you’re more successful.”
The two seniors played against each other in high school baseball, but took the field together when it came time for travel season. They most recently played together for Flood City Elite, both as outfielders, and Reese said that was one of the most fun experiences he had with Funk.
“When we get together in the summer we don’t skip a beat at all,” Reese said. “It’s so fun to be around a kid like (Funk). Especially when him and I are so close. When we’re in the dugout or in the outfield it’s so fun because we’re just messing with each other the whole game.”
Funk brought joy on the baseball field to more people than just Reese. The Bellefonte senior outfielder was a joy to be around for Bellefonte head coach Jon Clark. He was calm and steady when he needed to lock in, but relaxed and effervescent when his team needed to calm down.
Whether it was in games, during practice or even on bus rides, Funk could read the room and provide it with exactly what it needed.
“He was kind of a spokesperson,” Clark said. “He would sit in the back on bus rides and sit on the boom box. He’d get the guys singing songs on the way home and they’d be rapping and it was just a fun atmosphere. I think those are the moments when, as a team, you bond. All of those little things, we’re gonna miss.”
For all of the joy he brought to his team, Funk was even more impactful on the field. He had an opportunity to break several records this season, including the school records for stolen bases, doubles, triples, home runs and lifetime batting average, among others. He won’t get that chance because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but in lockstep with his personality, Funk isn’t all that concerned with those misses.
“Nobody wants to miss out on their senior baseball season,” he said. “But I always (think) more about the team and getting over that semifinal hump.”
He was more focused on the team, and he had plenty of reason to be excited about how far it could go in 2020.
Funk felt good about how he and his teammates were preparing for their season, and were primed to make a run past the semifinals, the furthest the team had made it in three years. That confidence went beyond the players and all the way up to Clark, who thought his team, led by Funk, could do some serious damage this season.
“There was more offseason work put in by this team than any other team that I can remember in my 15 years of being involved in Bellefonte baseball,” Clark said. “These guys put in so much time. ... We felt really good about pushing through those barriers and getting past the semifinals.”
But that won’t happen.
Funk won’t get to play his senior season and he won’t step into the batter’s box again as a Red Raider.
Instead, he’ll move on to Pittsburgh to begin a college career filled with potential.
And behind him he’ll leave a storied high school career without its storybook ending.
This story was originally published May 9, 2020 at 4:44 PM.
