O’Grady out-duels Forman

St. Francis Prep slugger Paul Karmas is not going to get many chances to play the hero. Presumably, teams will walk the St. John’s-bound outfielder with the game on the line. Pitchers will pitch around him; feed him countless breaking balls in the dirt. Molloy’s Dennis O’Grady is not one of them.
With the game tied at four and two runners on in the bottom half of the sixth inning, O’Grady, who led the Stanners to the city championship game last spring, fanned Karmas with a high fastball and then struck out Robert Larusso. The Stanners plated three runs in the seventh to complete the come-from-behind 7-4 victory at Cunningham Park Monday afternoon in their CHSAA opener, a game they trailed 4-0 after two frames.
“He competes,” Molloy Manager Jack Curran said of the Duke-bound O’Grady. “He doesn’t want to give in.”
“I knew I had to go after him,” said O’Grady, who scattered nine hits and struck out nine in the complete-game effort. “I stuck with my fastball and I was lucky to get out of it.”
Because of the rain, Molloy was forced to cancel many of their scheduled scrimmages, limiting O’Grady to just three innings of live work. It showed early, with the right-hander lacking his usual command. He allowed a two-run double to Larusso in the first, an RBI single to John Miele in the third, and Jonathan Rivera scored the Terriers’ fourth run on catcher Frank DeMaria’s throwing error.
But he settled down after that, and watched the Stanners scratch out four unearned runs on seven St. Francis Prep errors against buddy Dan Forman, a Manhattan College recruit. “I know my guys are going to get us runs,” he said. “I think in the third inning I finally settled down. I said if we get these runs I’ll be all right.”
The turning point came in the fourth, after Molloy pushed two across in the third on three errors. After walking Kevin Roberts and DeMaria, Forman whiffed Pat Sheehan with a nasty changeup, but the ball rolled just far enough away from Larusso to make it a bang-bang play at first. And the first-year catcher’s throw sailed down the right-field line, enabling both runners to cross.
“He pitched a good game,” St. Francis Prep Manager Robert Kent said of Forman who allowed just four hits and struck out seven, “and our defense let us down. We had a four-nothing lead and we gave it back to them.”
In relief of Forman, who threw 93 pitches over his six innings and had to be lifted, Robert O’Neill took the loss, allowing the go-ahead run on James Hounsell’s sacrifice fly. “We got to pick it from here,” Forman said.
It wasn’t surprising that neither team put up major offensive numbers, what with the respective staff aces and future Division I pitchers dealing. The two actually played together on the New York City Empire State Games team this summer, where they engaged in some friendly trash talk about this very game. “I got him, 1-0,” O’Grady joked. “We’ll meet again later.”
“I enjoy pitching against him,” Forman added, “It makes me pitcher better.