Holy Cross streak reaches 11 straight

It didn’t matter that this was the Battle for the Boulevard. Or that a 10-game league winning streak was on the line. Or that St. Francis Prep was sending ace southpaw Dan Forman to the mound while it was unheralded junior Anthony Mongelli’s turn for Holy Cross.
Manager Doug Manfredonia hasn’t skipped any of his myriad of capable starters in the rotation all season, and he wasn’t about to change. “That is the thing I’m most proud of,” he said. “We don’t manipulate our staff.”
So what happened? Well, Mongelli kept St. Francis off balance all afternoon, scattering seven hits over five and two-thirds innings, and the Knights scratched out three runs off the Manhattan-bound Forman for their 11th straight league win against no defeats, a tidy 3-0 win over local rival St. Francis Prep Monday afternoon, May 7 at Cunningham Park.
As Forman impressed a few college scouts in attendance with a fastball in the mid-to-high 80’s in tandem with his devastating 12-to-6 curveball, Mongelli’s stuff could hardly be described as overpowering, featuring a sinker that barely touched 80.
Still, he spotted his fastball on both sides of the plate, got ahead in the count and recorded all the big outs. “He located really well today,” Manfredonia said. “He was changing speeds and living on the black.”
With the bases loaded in the third, the Flushing resident got St. Francis cleanup hitter Robert Larussa to line out to deep left, and in the fifth, nursing a two-run lead, got right fielder Paul Karmas, the St. John’s-bound slugger, to roll over on an outside fastball to third for the inning-ending putout. “I started to build up more confidence [as the game went on],” he said. “My arm felt good the whole way.”
It wasn’t a very prolific offensive performance by the Knights, just yet another example of a deep lineup waiting out a tough adversary. They took advantage of three Forman walks and a two-out run-scoring single by Tim Doepner to plate two runs in the fourth, and Justin Leisenheimer knocked in an insurance run in the seventh. “They had a couple of chances, and we shut them down,” Manfredonia said. “We had a couple of chances and we pushed runs across.”
“We have confidence in everyone,” Mongelli said. “It’s not just one player. We know if everyone does their job, we’re going to win.”
The Terriers, meanwhile, dropped their second straight, a game in which they out-hit Holy Cross, 7-6, and fell into third place in Brooklyn/Queens with an 8-4 league mark. “We didn’t get a bit hit,” Manager Robert Kent lamented. “Forman kept us in the game. We couldn’t ask any more than that. … They all tried too hard. You got to let the game come to you.”