By Blake Buscemi
Downing goes the distance for a complete game shutout. Absolutely dominant performance with 10 Ks. pic.twitter.com/QOvLmIgSf0
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 22, 2022
There were a pair of Catholic League games played today at St. Joseph’s College, both of which had one thing in common; they were pitcher’s duels. That was to be expected with the quality of pitching that was lined up for the day.
Game one started off with a bang when Chaminade centerfielder and Binghamton-commit Nick Ungania smoked a triple into the right-center field gap. Marist-commit Brady Steinert drove him in with a single later in the inning to give Chaminade a 1-0 after an inning. Things got very quiet after this as both starting pitchers, Kyle Chase of St. John the Baptist and John Downing of Chaminade, continued to match zeros inning after inning.
Things started to get a bit dicey for Chaminade in the fourth, when St. John’s reached twice via the base on balls to start the inning. However, shortstop and top-ranked Michigan-commit Nolan Nawrocki made two tremendous plays at short to throw out one runner at home and one at first to keep the shutout intact.
Downing was completely dominant after this as he proceeded to retired the last eight batters he faced, four of those via the punchout. The game ended in a 1-0 victory for Chaminade, with John Downing’s final line being ten strikeouts while only allowing three walks. They will face St. Anthony’s in their next game and look to defend their regular-season title as the number-one seed going into the playoffs.
Jason DeCaro goes the distance, throwing a complete game while allowing only 1 run.
Final: St. Anthony’s 4, Kellenberg 1 pic.twitter.com/dq6GAVGrrU— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 22, 2022
Game two may not have been quite the pitcher’s duel that game one was, but it was close. Taj Farmer hit a deep double to left-center that most of the ballpark thought was going to get out off the bat, but it short-hopped the wall and he ended up being stranded in scoring position. Both pitchers, Brendan McCann of Kellenberg and Jason DeCaro of St. Anthony’s, matched zeros until Wake Forest-commit Andrew Koshy lined a single to right to give Kellenberg the early lead in the top of the third. McCann had a bump in the road in the bottom of the inning, allowing a walk to Napier, single to Farmer, walk to Mazzola, and a walk to Vizza to score a run and tie the game at 1. He then struck out Valentino to end the threat.
Both pitchers settled in very nicely after this, keeping the game scoreless until the bottom of the sixth. McCann was pulled from the game after surrendering a single to start the inning and the wheels came off from there, where two Kellenberg pitchers gave up two walks leading to a sac fly and an error resulting from a deep fly ball to center by Fordham-commit Jack Vallario. Jason DeCaro went out for the seventh and completed what he started, inducing a groundout to himself to end it and only allowing one run in a complete game gem. St. Anthony’s, looks to stay hot when they play Chaminade in the semifinals, where we should have another must-see pitching matchup.
