Advantageous sophomore

After staff ace AJ Boardman, Brother Robert Kent does not know what to expect from his other pitchers. Everyone is being given a tryout.
Suffice it to say left-hander Lebro Burnette passed the St. Francis Prep manager’s first test with flying colors.
The only sophomore on the Terriers roster, he limited Monsignor McClancy to six hits and one earned run in six and one-thirds innings. The 5-foot-9 underclassman wiggled out of several jams, including two bases-loaded, one-out pickles, in the second and fourth, to gain his first varsity victory in a 4-1 win in Jackson Heights Monday afternoon that pushed the defending city champions into a first-place tie with the Crusaders atop the Brooklyn/Queens division.
“I knew I had to work my way into [the rotation] so I worked all winter long, all fall,” he said. “I tried to show Brother what I had.”
After this performance, Burnette said, he proved “that even late in the game, I have stamina, I’ll stay focused, throw strikes. Brother knows what I got and he can use me whenever he wants - start, relief, anything.”
Mixing in a sharp 12 to 6 curveball and deceptive changeup to go with a fastball he spotted to each side of the plate, he was not overpowering. But Burnette, who Kent has nicknamed “Little Whitey Ford,” got better as the game went on, stranding eight McClancy base runners and striking out five. That he did so while nursing a one-run lead almost the entire way was even more impressive.
“He has a lot of guts,” Kent said. “He has poise. He wants to be in there.”
Kent had the same emotions about his lineup prior to the season. Of last year’s city championship team, only three regulars - shortstop Lucas Romeo, third baseman Sebastian Grazziani and second baseman Dennis Nover - return. An inexperienced bunch has gotten off to a solid 3-1 start. One, as Kent noted, that is feeling their way thus far.
Leadoff hitter William Xouris started St. Francis’ two-run first-inning rally off junior right-hander James Roubal by singling and added an insurance run with a run-scoring hit in the seventh. Boardman, Grazziani and Burnette also drove in runs.
The only way for the neophytes to get comfortable, Kent said, is to play in important games such as these. With the league so tight - every team has at least one loss already - with everyone seemingly capable of beating anyone, mid April has an early June feel.
“Every game is important, that’s why it’s really fun right now,” Xouris said. “Every game means something for the playoffs.”
It is why McClancy (3-1) did not take the loss too hard. In their previous victory, they trailed Holy Cross by 10 runs only to rally for 11 in the final two frames. This time, the Crusaders could not get the timely hit, whether it was Thomas Cloonen (strikeout) and Blake Barbeito (fly-out) failing to get the trying run home in the second or Cloonen hitting into an odd 7-3-5-6 double play in the fourth.
“The good thing is we’ll learn from it,” McClancy Manager Nick Melito said. “We’ll adjust.”