I won’t ask for much from the RIIL baseball playoff brackets. I’d take some good match-ups for Warwick schools. Some good upsets would be nice. I’ll always take some good weather. And I will have a nice helping of Rhode Island high school baseball’s best rivalry.

Bishop Hendricken is one-half of it, the king of Little Rhody hardball. The other half? Sure, La Salle is Hendricken’s chief rival but the two don’t have a lot of recent baseball history. North Kingstown always tests Hendricken, but in my book, they’re not it either.

Give me Hawks vs. Falcons.

Since 2002, only two teams have won state baseball championships – Bishop Hendricken and Cranston West. The Hawks have won eight of them, the Falcons three. Along the way, they’ve had memorable games and heated moments, they’ve shared a hotbed of players and they haven’t liked each other much.

That’s what you call a rivalry.

My introduction to it came in 2006, during the most memorable playoff run I’ve ever covered. Cranston West was a hugely talented team, with a lineup – and even a bench – full of players who would go on to college careers. But they’d underachieved at times, and when Gary Gillheeney shut them out in game two of a state semifinal series, they went to Hendricken for a decisive game three with little momentum and a sophomore on the mound who was making his first varsity start.

That sophomore was Anthony Meo, and the rest was history.

Meo dazzled in a complete-game win, and the Falcons went on to their first top division baseball title since 1975, riding their win over Hendricken to a dominant sweep of North Kingstown in the championship series.

Before that season, Hendricken had owned Cranston West in the way the Hawks baseball program owns a lot of teams. But that one game-three win changed it all and sparked a new chapter in the rivalry. I remember a regular-season meeting the next year when fans poured into the Hendricken tennis courts, lining the right-field fence to watch.

That year, the Hawks and Falcons met again in the playoffs, and West prevailed again on its way to a second consecutive state championship.

Since then, Hendricken has made McCoy Stadium its second home, winning five of the last six state championships. The one the Hawks didn’t get? It went to a powerful Cranston West team in 2011.

The talent that has fueled all these championships is some of the best that’s come out of Rhode Island in the last decade. On the West side, there was Meo, who went on to an All-American career at Costal Carolina and to the professional ranks. There were college standouts like Matt Fontaine, Ted Haley, Chris Famiglietti and Shane O’Connell. On the 2011 team, there was Jeff Diehl, a draft pick out of high school, and more college players like Mike Hayden and Matt Pagano. Hendricken has churned out the likes of Evan Marzilli, Chris Costantino, Dan Gamache, Tom Pannone and Jeff Roy.

The amazing thing – and one of the most intriguing parts of the rivalry – is how much of Hendricken’s talent comes from the Western side of Cranston. It’s a pocket where baseball is king, where Cranston Western Little League has dominated the competition ever since its 1996 Little League World Series run.

The fortunes of Cranston West’s baseball program have often hinged on who stays home – and who goes to Hendricken. Marzilli, who went on to star at South Carolina and is now in the Diamondbacks organization, is from Cranston. In 2010, Hendricken’s entire outfield – two of whom are now pros in Pannone and Roy – hailed from Cranston. West itself was 15-3 that year. Add those guys in, and they might have been an all-time great team. Of course, the Falcons don’t need solace, because they won it all the next year, anyway.

Since 2011, West hasn’t been at the same level, while Hendricken has continued to win. But when the teams get together, there’s a little extra juice. Some teams will hold back their best pitchers against Hendricken, opting to save them for games that are actually winnable. Cranston West never does that. The Falcons will always push the Hawks.

That’s why I’d love to see them square off in the postseason again. It would be the first time since 2007. Maybe it wouldn’t be anything special. The Hawks have won two meetings against West pretty handily.

But with these two, you never know

Great rivalries are like that.

William Geoghegan is the sports editor of the Warwick Beacon. He can be reached at 732-3100 and williamg@rhodybeat.com.