By Five Boro Sports
Chris DeSarno said he didn’t see a CHSAA Class A intersectional junior varsity championship out of his team, not after a mediocre start to the regular season with blowout losses to Bishop Ford and Xaverian.
DeSarno also didn’t see the bucket of ice water his team doused him with after said championship victory, the second in his 11 years at Archbishop Molloy.
“That felt great, actually,” he said. “They’re a great bunch of guys.”
DeSarno was referring to the impromptu soaking he received on a warm Sunday afternoon at Kaiser Stadium, but he just as well could have been talking about his emotions after the Stanners defeated Iona Prep 14−6 to win the title, Molloy’s first since 2004.
To capture the title, Molloy had to beat three division winners — Xavier, Xaverian and Iona Prep — along the way.
“I’m very proud of them,” DeSarno said. “They work so hard and to win 15 of their last 16 games or whatever it was, they did a great job.”
DeSarno has made seven trips to the championship game, but so many times his teams have been snake−bitten on the wrong side of a one−run game.
That wasn’t the case Sunday, as the Stanners raced out to a 5−0 lead after two trips to the plate.
But starter Jonathan Ramon, who had two playoff victories under his belt, wasn’t as sharp as he had been in the post−season. Iona Prep (18−3) got within 6−5 and had runners at second and third when Rob Ambrosino hit a hot shot up the middle against Molloy’s drawn−in infield in the fifth inning.
That’s where Ramon, who moved to short after starting shortstop Matthew Hunter went to the mound, made the snag and the tag, ending the inning and the Gaels’ rally with an unassisted double−play.
“I think that was the turning point of the game because if that ball would have gone through, it would have been a tie game,” Ramon said.
Molloy (17−4) immediately came out and tacked on four runs in each of the final two innings in the team’s biggest offensive explosion of the year.
Third baseman Kevin Lawlor, who missed most of the season with a pulled hamstring, nearly missed out on the title game, taking a bad hop off his face in the second inning. But the sophomore returned and had a big day at the plate, driving in two runs and scoring four times.
“It really only hurt when I first got hit,” Lawlor said. “But then after that I could see fine, so I wanted to play.”
Added DeSarno: “We talked about Molloy toughness and perseverance and he’s the epitome of that.”
As was the case during Molloy’s second−half surge, there were plenty of heroes. Connor LiSante drove in four runs, leadoff hitter Frank Peperone scored four times and Ramon belted a two−run double to right in the Stanners’ four−run second inning.
“The insurance runs were really big today,” Lawlor said.
Ramon said he and his teammates weren’t nervous to play in front of a large crowd of friends, family and faculty at St. John’s. After all, the Stanners had already defeated Xaverian in the semifinals after beating the Clippers late in the regular season, a pivotal win according to Ramon.
“It motivated us going into the playoffs, knowing we could beat anybody,” the freshman said. “We were told that was the best team, so once we beat them, everything else was easy.”
