Accustomed to winning and contending for top honors, the Bishop Ludden baseball team would like to see that work translate into actual championship hardware by the time the 2012 season is done.
Seven seniors, including Chris Davis, James Murray, Casey Ganley, Aaron Maher and Mike DePalma, have departed, but head coach Ted Klamm still has a solid returning cast that includes Ryan O’Kane, Ciro Frontale, Corey Poplawski and Dan Ganley.
Those returnees, plus some new faces, were on display in last Monday’s season opener at Chittenango, where O’Kane’s pitching and a steady attack at the plate produced an 11-2 victory over the Bears.
It was scoreless until the third inning, when Ludden picked up four runs to take the lead for good. Seven more runs would follow in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings as the Gaelic Knights earned 15 hits overall.
Kyle Hawk, just off helping Ludden’s boys basketball team win the state Class B championship, led with three hits, two of them doubles. O’Kane managed two hits and two RBIs, while Robbie Wiegan earned three hits and a single RBI. Frontale, Tyler Dunsmoor and Robbie Wiegan also drove in runs.
Meanwhile, O’Kane had a strong six-inning stint on the mound, holding Chittenango to one hit and not allowing a walk as he struck out eight. Poplawski worked the seventh inning in relief.
When Ludden met Cortland two days later in its home opener and put together a 3-1 victory over the Purple Tigers, it gave head coach Ted Klamm his 200th career win.
Overall, Klamm is 200-96 in his 18 seasons coaching the Gaelic Knights, and this contest, like so many in that tenure, turned on strong pitching.
Dunsmoor started and went five innings, allowing just three hits while striking out eight. In the sixth, Poplawski took over, going the rest of the way with a two-inning save that featured a pair of strikeouts.
Ludden got all the runs it needed when it scored twice in the bottom of the first. Another run followed in the third inning as Jared Taylor racked up three hits and O’Kane added two hits. Both of them scored runs, as did Frontale.
On Saturday, the Gaelic Knights took its first blemish of the season, going to Skaneateles and seeing one bad inning make the diference in a 5-3 loss to the Lakers.
Ahead 2-1 going to the bottom of the third, Ludden unraveled as Skaneateles pounded out four runs against Poplawski. Ryan Sherman’s home run was the key blow as he finished with three RBIs and scored twice.
Meanwhile, at the plate the Gaelic Knights managed just six hits off Laker pitcher Ryan Prochna, who went the route and piled up 11 strikeouts. O’Kane tossed three scoreless innings of relief, but Ludden could not catch up.
The Gaelic Knights are staying home during the April school break, playing a trio of games, including back-to-back OHSL Freedom division tests against Jamesville-DeWitt and Phoenix.
