Fenwick baseball goes to Church to beat St. Mary’s

LYNN – Bishop Fenwick’s Kevin Church has been in plenty of pressure packed situations on the mound, be it during his trip to the New England Regionals in Little League for Peabody West or throwing a no-hitter earlier this season.So it didn’t come as much of a surprise to Crusader coach Russ Steeves that the southpaw would be as cool as the other side of the pillow on Monday in the bottom of the seventh inning against St. Mary’s as he pitched out of a bases loaded jam to give Fenwick a 3-2 win.”St. Mary’s is a great team and we knew this was the type of game it was going to be,” Steeves said.”Kevin has been in a lot of these situations already and he has been a nice addition to our staff after transferring from Malden Catholic.”The Spartans (7-1, 4-1 Catholic Central League/Large) left nine men on the basepaths Monday and hit into three rally killing double plays, including a 4-6-3 twin killing that ended the gamer with the bases loaded.”We had our opportunities,” Spartans coach Derek Dana said. “Fenwick is a good team and we knew that coming in. They made the big plays, especially at the end.”Fenwick gave the ball to Mike LaChance while the Spartans sent Matt Turmenne to the bump and they combined to shut down two potent offenses despite plunking a combined six batters.The Spartans broke the ice in the bottom of the second as they loaded the bases on singles from Joe Kasper and Turmenne along with Jeremy Tranfaglia being hit by a pitch.Designated hitter Zach Paone then sent a single just inside the third base bag to plate Kasper and Turmenne for a 2-0 lead.Fenwick (9-2, 5-1 CCL Large) returned the favor in the top of the third by taking the lead after Turmenne had retired the first two batters.Mike Davis started the rally with a walk before Dave Ruggiero was hit for the second time in the game.Chad Lessard then dumped a bloop double just inside the third base line to bring home Davis.Cam Borelli followed with a sharp hit to right, plating Ruggiero and Lessard to make it 3-2 Crusaders.”That was a big hit by Borelli there,” Steeves said.St. Mary’s would have a third inning rally killed when LaChance got Joe Kasper to ground into a 1-6-3 double play and then did the same to Alex Fiste in the fifth to thwart another Spartan chance.”We had that one bad inning where it all happened with two outs,” Dana said.”You’ve got to shore those things up if you want to win in this league. And (LaChance) was throwing strikes and doing an excellent job of hitting his spots.”Paone led off the bottom of the seventh with a double that brought Church on from the bullpen.After a strikeout, Fiste and Nick Day drew free passes before Kasper grounded into the game-ending double play.