Kennedy Baseball Takes Two of Three From Mepham

Kennedy's hot hitting continued on Thursday afternoon against the Mepham Pirates, and everyone's getting into the act.

Outfielder Jordan Leopold hit his first home run of the season to help power the Cougars to a 9-6 win over the Pirates. Kennedy (8-3) took two of three this week from conference rivals, as Mepham falls to 6-6. 

The win came on the heels of Kennedy's 11-5 win on Tuesday, where Evan Krohn drove in six for the Cougars.

Monday's contest was a wild 11-10 Mepham win, where Dom Manzella's infield hit induced a throwing error to give the Pirates the win in their final turn at bat.

On Thursday, the wind picked up and would play a factor. It was a scoreless game when Leopold stepped to the plate in the third against Mepham starter Jordan Gilroy. The count went to 2-2, and Leopold drove the next pitch over the fence to kick off the day's scoring.

"I was looking fastball, didn't think I got all of it, it carried out to right field," Leopold said.

"[It was] very surprising," Kennedy head coach Eric Passman said of the home run. "I think he got it up in the wind ... first home run of the year, it was awesome."

Brandon Serota scored on a double steal, and Andrew Wood's RBI single made it 3-0 Kennedy. 

Wood ran into some trouble in his "other" role as starting pitcher in the fourth.

Mepham's Tom DeLuca and Nick White singled before third baseman Dom Manzella crushed Wood's offering for a three-run blast to tie the game. A couple of Mike McCormick errors at third led to another run for the Pirates

"He's had one bad inning this whole year," Passman said. "We hung in there. We give up ground balls, we [still] have to make the plays behind him."

Kennedy broke things open in the fifth. David Leiderman's bases loaded single tied it and Justin Harrison's two-run single put the Cougars ahead for good. The five-run outburst was the exclamation point on Gilroy's day, as Chris Brucato came in relief for relief.

"He was very good early on," Mepham coach Bill Murphy said. "His pitch count the last series wasn't up that high, so he started to run out of gas third time through the order, that was pretty much where [Kennedy] did most of their damage."

The Pirates tried to chip away, as White hit an RBI single and Manzella notched his fourth RBI in the seventh on a hit, but Kennedy reliever Kevin Sustad struck out the next three Pirates for the save and the 9-6 Kennedy win.

Both teams are already in the playoffs, so it's all about seeding for the rest of the regular season.

"We want to get a bye and be in good position," Leopold said.