Carroll baseball picks up win against O’Hara

Archbishop Carroll’s baseball team picks up a huge win over Cardinal O’Hara on Thursday.

Carroll went into the game with a 2-1 record in the Philadelphia Catholic League and walked out 3-1. The team won in seven innings with a score of 11-10. 

Carroll started off the game with a 1-0 lead but O’Hara came back to tie it quickly after. Senior starting pitcher James Brown had to be taken out of the game in the bottom of the first because of illness. 

“It sucked having to come out of the game,” said Brown. “My role quickly went from starting pitching to me having to now support my team from the bench.”

Senior Jack Bateman picked up where Brown left off and pitched four innings.

Carroll didn’t let up as it took a 7-4 lead. Senior Domenic Venini hit a three-run homerun to extend the lead to 10-4. The lead looked comfortable until Cardinal O’Hara hit the gas and tied the game back up heading into the second half of the game. Nonetheless, Carroll came back and took the lead again at 11-10.

Outfielder Connor Keith, a senior, came in to relieve Bateman and pitched two shutout innings, helping  Carroll secure the win against O’Hara. 

“Honestly, for me to be in that situation was no pressure,” said Keith. “Throughout the years that has been my job. Having no emotion on the mound and concentrating on the goal to secure the win is the biggest thing I had to do.”

The team tallied 10 hits in the game while Venini and Dylan Gallagher collected two a piece. Bateman, Brown, Keith, James Wright,  Michael McCafferty, and Drew Mulligan all collected one hit each as well. 

“Winning a game like that at O’Hara is huge for us,” said McCafferty, a senior. “We really needed to win this game, especially after a tough lost to Chichester. This win put us back on track.”