Kennedy grabs spot in finals

Cougars oust No. 1 Carey, will face Wantagh for title

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Less than 24 hours after keeping top-seeded Carey off the scoreboard with his arm, senior Michael Schwartz kept the Seawolves off the board with what could go down as the biggest catch in Kennedy baseball history.

Running for the centerfield fence at the crack of the bat, Schwartz made a leaping grab of Joe Filardo’s booming drive one step in front of the wall, came down with the ball, then tumbled over the wall for the final out in a 4-2 win on May 24, that pushed the No. 11 Cougars (16-7-1) into the first Nassau County Class A championship round in school history. They will battle No. 7 Wantagh in a best-of-3 series scheduled to begin Saturday at Farmingdale State.

“The second the ball was hit my heart sunk,” Kennedy coach Eric Passman said of the drive with two outs and a runner on first that would have tied the game. “It looked like a home run. When he fell on the fence, we weren’t even sure he had the ball.

“In 43 years of coaching, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Schwartz’s catch made it a clean sweep of Carey in the Class A semifinal round, a two-game set in which the Cougars limited perhaps the top offense to just two runs in 16 innings. Junior Frank Bruno pitched the first 6 2/3 innings, allowing two runs, including one after registering the first two outs in the seventh before sophomore Jason Coules came in to close it out by throwing one pitch—that Schwartz ultimately tracked down. Bruno hit a home run to support himself, while senior Tyler Griffith had a pair of hits and two runs batted in. “The defense was spectacular but you need timely hitting,” Passman said. “It’s not if you hit, but when you hit [in key spots].”

The defense behind Bruno turned several double plays, including one that went unassisted by senior Greg Goeller on a line drive that he snagged and then tagged the runner trying to get back to second base. He also converted a force play at second from his knees after hitting the dirt for a grounder.

In the first game of the series, one day earlier, it took nine innings before Kennedy finally broke a scoreless tie with a pair of runs on a bases loaded sacrifice fly to short centerfield by junior Vincent Pedone that drove in Coules and an infield grounder by senior George Savas that plated Goeller. The quick scoring burst made a winner out of Savas, who pitched for the first time this season and threw a pair of scoreless innings, setting down the side in order in the bottom of the ninth. Schwartz pitched the first six innings, with senior Jonah Zeitlin bridging the gap to Savas with a scoreless seventh. Over the nine innings, the Cougars’ pitchers allowed just five hits.

“To Carey’s credit, they were putting the ball in play but we were making plays,” Passman said. “[Schwartz’s] control was the best it had been all year, and his command the best it had been all year.”