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Fly-ball outs help Woodridge’s Kelleher shut down Poland
By Greg Gulas
HUDSON
Kevin Kelleher was a one-man wrecking crew Thursday for Peninsula Woodridge.
Pat Carlozzi was almost the same for Poland.
Kelleher scattered five hits, struck out four, had two of his team’s three hits and knocked in all three runs as Woodridge (28-3) defeated Poland, 3-2 in a Division II regional semifinal at The Ball Park at Hudson.
Woodridge will meet Notre Dame Cathedral Latin (16-11) at 5 p.m. today with the winner advancing to the state semi-finals June 6 at Huntington Park in Columbus.
The Lions earned their title game appearance by disposing of Canton South, 7-0, earlier in the day.
“Coach [Dennis] Dever never lies to us and he told us all week that Poland would be a very tough opponent. As a team, we knew that any team from the Struthers district would be a formidable opponent,” Kelleher said. “Today, we both got what we fully expected and that was a well-played game by two pretty good baseball programs.”
Kelleher’s one-out single in the opening frame staked Woodridge (28-3) to the early 1-0 lead and after stroking a two-out double in the third inning that scored Christian Owens and battery mate Tom Morehouse, his bat enabled the Bulldogs to open a 3-0 advantage.
Poland coach Rich Murray felt the early deficit took his team out of their game.
“We’re a ‘small ball’ team; our game is not hitting fly balls,” he said. “When we fell behind 3-0 we couldn’t run and while Pat struggled early, he kept us in the game every inning thereafter.
“If you had told me prior to the game that we would hold Woodridge to three runs, I would have taken that because I felt we could score four runs to win.”
So in control was Kelleher that he retired the first two batters in each of the first five innings.
“Despite not being the swiftest afoot, Kevin is the complete package and the player that carried our team today,” Bulldogs coach Dennis Dever said. “Take your hat off to Pat Carlozzi because he threw a heck of a game for Poland. He was gutsy, worked every batter and never gave in. We knew the caliber of team we would be facing today and felt that it would be a low-scoring contest and it was.”
Kelleher had retired seven in a row and 13 of 15 Poland batters heading to the sixth frame.
That inning belonged to Carlozzi.
Chase Knodle led off with a single up the middle and after Sonny Lipari flied out, Carlozzi stroked a triple to right-center field to cut the Woodridge margin to 3-1.
Ricky Svetlak’s single then plated Carlozzi to make it 3-2.
But Poland (21-7) did not score again.
Carlozzi (7-2), who finished with a three-hitter before being lifted with two outs in the seventh inning, had nine strikeouts, but walked five and hit a batter.
“All season long we had great pitching, excellent defense and found holes offensively,” Carlozzi said. “We had a great season, but lost to the better team today.”
Carlozzi threw 115 pitches overall but in the critical third inning when Woodridge added their final two runs, he threw 26 pitches. Eighteen came after two were out and no runs had scored.
Kelleher forced Poland batters into 14 fly-ball outs; seven of which were caught by center fielder Anthony Yacobucci, a first-team all-state selection a season ago. He showed why with a spectacular over-the-head catch in the third inning.