With the season on the line, the tying and go-ahead runners on base, Monsignor McClancy third baseman Ryan Blanco had a textbook at-bat.
He worked the count in his favor to 3-1, laying off a pair of breaking balls in the dirt. When he did see a pitch he could handle, a grooved fastball, Blanco stayed within himself, lacing the pitch up the middle. Upon contact, he immediately put his head down and busted it.
Unfortunately, none of it mattered, as Blanco’s well struck grounder found the webbing of LaSalle (11-9) pitcher Andrew Diaz’s glove. The ball was hit with so much velocity, it took Diaz’s glove with it, landing on the pitcher’s mound. Diaz recovered, however, to throw out Blanco, ending the Crusaders’ season, 3-1, in the final game of their best-of-three playoff series at St. John’s University last Sunday afternoon.
“I thought it was going through,” Blanco said afterward. “I hit it pretty hard.”
Diaz, a right-hander, kept the Crusaders off balance with an exceptional change-up and curve, and was greatly aided by home plate umpire Joe Volpe’s liberal and generous strike zone. Diaz whiffed nine, many on called third strikes a good six to eight inches off the plate. “I think it helps when you get an extra half foot off the plate,” said McClancy Manager Nick Melito, who refused to blame Volpe for the loss, although he added, “that strike-zone changed the game. … Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t a good strike-zone.”
McClancy (13-13) ace Nick Condos didn’t have his best stuff, but allowed just two earned runs on six hits in a complete-game effort. After stranding seven LaSalle runners in the first four frames, he couldn’t escape trouble in the fifth. Catcher Fred Goris drove in the go-ahead run with a laser into the gap in left center and scored two batters later on McClancy catcher Joe Liberta’s throwing error.
Blanco’s seventh-inning chance was one of just a few scoring opportunities for McClancy, who managed just three walks and an unearned run off of Diaz. Blanco scored the Crusaders’ only run when he doubled, stole third and crossed home on Goris’s throwing error. He struck out in the fifth, stranding two runners on after Dan Lopez, the University of Pittsburgh-bound shortstop, singled. Diaz intentionally walked Lopez with two on in the seventh, before he snagged Blanco’s hard-hit base-hit bid.
“It’s disappointing, but we gave a good effort,” said Lopez, who became McClancy’s all-time leader in stolen bases earlier in the week. “[It’s] disappointing. My high school career is over.”
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Elsewhere in the Catholic league, Molloy (13-6) beat Mount St. Michael, 5-4, in the final game of their best-of-three playoff series. Anthony Carnacchio and Ariel Amory each hit two-run homers for the Stanners.
Meanwhile, St. Francis Prep (9-10), saw their season come to an end with a 4-3 loss to Moore Catholic in the final game of their best-of-three series.
