Go-Go Terriers move on

This was close to three weeks ago, after a brilliant pitcher’s duel, a 1-0 St. Francis Prep victory over Holy Cross, when AJ Boardman out-dueled Kevin Kilpatrick, the two seniors each striking out 13.
Bro. Robert Kent, the Terriers longtime coach, had just witnessed senior third baseman Sebastian Grazziani’s first-inning homer stand up, and it finally struck him: for St. Francis to win, to win like they did a year ago, when they rode the left arm of Danny Forman and big bat of Paul Karmas to their first city championship since 1995, they would have to play differently.
“This is the real world with wood bats and good pitchers,” he told them.
So he acted accordingly. Kent moved fleet-footed center fielder Robert Dougherty from the ninth spot in the batting order to second, pushed second baseman Dennis Nover to the three-hole, while bumping shortstop Lucas Romeo, one of their top run producers, to sixth. The plan was rather simple: stack the first third of the lineup with speed and follow them with boppers.
“I’ve been hitting a lot better and driving in a lot more runs than I was earlier in the year,” Romeo said, “so I don’t mind.”
The graduation of Karmas, who is now at St. John’s, in addition to middle-of-the-order stalwarts Robert Larusso (Molloy) and Mike Canfarotta (LaSalle), not to the citywide advent of wooden bats, made the transition a must. The batting order was not the only change. Instead of relying on big rallies, bunting was emphasized in practice and heavily utilized in games. The plan was to score one run every inning.
“This year the idea is more about defense and getting the little things done,” Romeo said.
After a brief adjustment period - “they didn’t like it, even the little guys wanted to hit homeruns,” Kent said - the seventh-seeded Terriers (15-5) have taken to the approach.
They have won seven in a row, which included taking the first two games of their best-of-three CHSAA Class A playoff set against No. 11 Xavier over the weekend, scoring 11 and 12 runs in the two games, to advance to the CHSAA’s double elimination, eight-team final round. Of the seven bunts they laid down in the series, the Terriers beat out six of them for infield hits.
Suddenly, as the league’s postseason moves into overdrive, St. Francis, who will meet No. 4 Stepinac in the opening round, is hitting on all cylinders. Boardman, the Caldwell College-bound right-hander, has hit his stride. The lineup is starting to hum, relying on its speed and versatility. The team that struggled so mightily in April, finding itself in fifth place in Brooklyn/Queens at one point, is now the lone Queens team remaining, in prime position to defend their title.
“I feel like we just started to hit,” said Nover, one of the Terriers’ sparkplugs. “We’re going to explode through the rest of the playoffs.”
Added Romeo: “All the seniors this year that were returning - me, AJ, Sebastian and Dennis - we want it again. We saw the way it ended last year and how those guys went out and we want to definitely keep it going.”