Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin shut out Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy the day before, and the Royals took the Lions’ field by command early April 21.
The Royals plated three in the opening inning and had four innings not allowing a hit in an 11-1 win.
CVCA improves to 8-4 on the season, while NDCL falls to 4-6.
CVCA started the game strong. Two batters reached, but a pair of outs had the Royals facing the flip of the inning.
Then Alex Mammone and Peyton Drabick came to the plate.
Mammone helped his own case before stepping on the mound as his hit fell between a conglomeration of Lions for the opening run to score. Drabick sent one to left that the wind took a hold of for two more to plate.
Coach Marc Thibeault has seen the highs and lows for the team through a difficult schedule. He knows a back-to-back with an NCC foe is always going to be a challenge.
“We know it’s a good opponent. It’s a really good league,” Thibeault said. “There’s no tomato cans in this league. Everyone comes to play, and they have good players. One of the things that we did yesterday was, in the beginning of the game, we didn’t throw a lot of strike one. But in the second half of the game, we threw a lot of strike one, so we were able to kind of shut down a pretty good offense, a good fastball-hitting team. They gave us a few free 90s yesterday. We gave them a wheelbarrow load of weight-free 90s today.”
The Royals added to their lead in the top of the third. Reed Jones had a pinch-hit single that plated a run.
NDCL got on the board in the bottom half of the frame. Aaron Hackney got on board with a throwing error while Keenan Ryans drew a walk with Jason Rook moving them into scoring position.
Joey Mazzolini had a shallow pop to center in the next at-bat, but it was deep enough for Hackney to score from third.
CVCA responded in the fourth. Jonah Gaudio laid down a bunt but the runner was tagged out at home as he made it to first.
Mammone then sent one to center that allowed Gaudio to score.
Mammone also added a strong day on the mound, throwing six innings, allowing one hit and striking out five.
Jacob Lancy and Mammone added one-run singles in the sixth to ice the contest. Lancy added a grand slam in the seventh.
The challenging schedule is nothing new for NDCL. The North Coast Conference features five teams that made the regional round last year, including CVCA, which was a regional finalist in Division III.
NDCL, which fell in a district final to Benedictine a season ago, did have a significant number of impact players graduate. But Thiebault believes his team will be ready for the grind of the postseason.
“No matter what, we’re always going to try to play the toughest schedule,” Thibeault said. “I think we’re blessed in the area where we can play some really good teams day in and day out. These are all mini tests for the big one. It’s not a matter of, you know, seeing average to below-average pitching and then all of a sudden you get into the tournament and you get into that first, second, third round, whatever it is. And then you’re facing a college-level or college-bound arm. You want to try to be able to face that all the time. That’s how we practice, that’s how we prepare, so that we’re ready for whatever that challenge does arise.”
NDCL looks to regroup with a trip to Cardinal on April 23. CVCA has another conference road trip with Holy Name on the same day.
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