EAGLES PROVE TO BE THE BEST YET AGAIN
By Matt Maher
NILES, OH – JFK rode high in their own Eagles wings during the D4 District finals matchup against the Mineral Ridge Rams! The Eagles showed up when they needed to in a close affair and managed to take a 2-0 victory over their opponent.
Mineral Ridge had trouble from the start trying to get anything past the Eagles Ace, Freddy Bolchalk and the proof was in the back-to-back 1-2-3 innings Bolchalk pitched to start the game! The Eagles struggled against the Rams Freshman starter Nick Anderson but found a way to get the first run past him in the 2nd thanks to a Santino Ciambotti single that would bring home Andrew LaPolla.
Both teams kept the defense tight through the 3rd and 4th innings, with Bolchalk striking out 2 more batters and his defense making some stellar plays like the back to back fly outs in the top of the 4th to Taggart Carfangia and the groundout from Ciambotti to Jaden Rishel to end the inning. Anderson continued to throw difficult pitches for JFK to hit at and his defense came up huge thanks to a diving line out to Andrew Gille in the 3rd and an untraditional double play from a pop out to Jackson geddes and a throw down to Gino Novello at First to get the lone JFK baserunner who was caught trying to tag back up.
The Eagles offense showed up again in the 5th after a leadoff double from Ciambotti and 4 batters later an RBI double from Dom Ryan would bring him home. Anderson would stop any more runs from coming across and kept JFK from getting anything they could sink their talons into again for the rest of the game. Bolchalk struck out 5 more Rams on his way to the district crown and earned himself the complete game shutout as well.
For Anderson, he finished with 7 IP, 2 ER, 5 H and 1 K while Bolchalk completed 7IP, 0 ER, 2 H, and 9 Ks!
Both teams showed everyone watching just why they were in Niles for this game, there was fantastic pitching from both ends and even greater defense that carried a lot of weight for both sides in this one. While defense stood strong for Mineral Ridge, a few runs trickled through and made the difference in this game. Both teams played well in the tournament throughout the regular season but JFK had just enough to move on through, congratulations to both teams on an incredible game and incredible seasons and good luck to Warren JFK in their regional semifinals matchup!
