Flyers Baseball Splits Doubleheader Against St. Anthony’s

Hitting will , but it’s defense that will win championships.

As they try to repeat as CHSAA champions, the varsity baseball team has a good defense – particularly on the right side of the infield – but it still means nothing if not for the pitching.

“Give our defense a chance; we have a good defense,” Flyers head coach Mike Pienkow said. “You turn a couple of double plays, you get out of a big inning but you’ve got to throw the ball over the plate.”

The Flyers had split a double-header makeup series at Saturday, dropping the first game 5-0 but picking up the rubber game 3-1 and in the process putting themselves in a three-way tie for second place with the final regular season series against St. John’s yet to play.

Yet it would have still been noting without key double-plays in the sixth from shortstop Terence Connelly and secondbaseman Zachary Hieb turning a couple of key 6-4-3’s.

“The way I feel about making a double play is as long as our pitcher’s throwing it over the plate we have a chance,” Pienkos said. “If he’s not throwing the ball over the plate, which is what happened in the first game, we don’t have a chance.”

The Connelly-Hieb combination game the Flyers a chance as Castigle’s ability to induce flyouts and strikeouts more than grounders left the infield little time to flash their leather other than the sixth with the first-place Friars threatening in the sixth and earlier eliminating a walk in the third.

“He can do it all,” Pienkos said of Connelly, who dove for a grounder off the bat of Friar catcher Mike D’Aconti before flipping it to Hieb to catch leadoff man Rich Patrizio and then onto first to get the Friar catcher. “He plays great defense, he runs the bases great and he can hit.”

Against what should have been baseball logic, Pienkos left starter Michael Castigle in the game through six innings before calling on junior Joseph Romero to close it out.

“I just felt that he had command,” Pienkos said, acknowledging that the move was “against everybody’s wishes,” but “he was still throwing the ball over the plate and like I said earlier, if you give us a chance, let our defense work, you have a good chance to win.”

“This is the best team we’ve seen all year. So to get that third game, that was very big for us,” Pienkos said.

With rain once again delaying the final series Tuesday, the Flyers will be in action against St. John’s on Wedesday at Hofstra.

“We have no where else to play,” Pienkos noted about the end of the schedule.

That is, except the playoffs.