Kennedy Baseball Rolls Over Herricks to Advance in Playoffs

Going into the first round of the playoffs against Herricks yesterday at Kennedy High School, the Cougars knew that a loss to the Highlanders would mean that their season had come to an end.

The team must really want to keep playing more ball, because after scoring its first two runs in the third inning, the offense kept the pressure on en route to its 16-6 victory over Herricks.

"It's always good when you get the guys to hit like this,"  Kennedy head coach Eric Passman said.  "Today we apparently had our hitting shoes on and it's a different game when you bang the ball around."

Kennedy catcher Joe Gallito started the offensive onslaught in the third inning with a two-run homer, and remained in the middle of it throughout the entire game. He went 3-4, driving in seven of the Cougars 16 runs via two home runs and a double.

Although he did say that sometimes you get days when the ball just looks big, after a suggestion by some of his teammates he agreed that there may have been another reason he did so well at the plate on Saturday, "It was the bagels this morning," Gallito said.

The team was obviously in good spirits after the victory, but all joking aside, the Highlanders showed some resilience and brought themselves right back into the game in the top of the fifth inning.

After the Cougars scored six runs in the fourth, they're biggest inning of the game, Herricks found itself in an 8-0 hole. Stringing some hits together, the Highlanders were able to score four in the fifth, and find themselves well within reach of tying the game again.

"It was getting close there," Passman said. "To their credit they came back real nicely against some good pitching. So once that happened we had to refocus a little bit, I think we lost focus there for a while."

And that's just what his team did. In Kennedy's turn at-bat in the bottom of the inning, they got all four of those runs right back, three of them coming from Gallito's second homer of the game. Herricks head coach Mike Lesak thought his team's morale got a little deflated after that.

"We come half-way back, we think we're back in the game, and then all of the sudden they score four and then we're back down eight all over again," Lesak said.

The Cougars gave their ace pitcher Kevin Archbold plenty of breathing room to work with. Throughout his six innings of work, he struck out 12, and the only real blemish in his day was the fifth inning. He said that a little bit of that inning had to do with waiting on the bench for so long as his teammates pushed six runs across home plate for him in the bottom of the fourth, but he wasn't making any excuses for himself.

"I struggled a little that inning, and came back strong the next inning," Archbold said.

Overall the game was a complete team effort. Good pitching, outstanding hitting, and a clean game for the defense. The hitting is definitely the most gratifying for the team, even their pitcher.

"Everyone had a great day today, we came up huge with two outs," Archbold said. "We just hit the ball really well today, that was the biggest thing we were concerned about."

The Cougars will hope some of those big hits are still left in the tank come tomorrow when they will play their second round game of the playoffs.