Bishop Montgomery Finally Nears Playoffs

For 14 long years, ever since it joined the Angelus League, the baseball, football and basketball teams at Bishop Montgomery have been shut out of postseason play.

Saturday night at Torrance Park the Knight baseball team moved closer to ending that drought with a 6-4 victory over Bishop Amat. The Knights close out their league season with a 5-7 record, and, temporarily at least, are secure in third place.

Bishop Montgomery will advance to the playoffs if second-place St. Paul beats Bishop Amat (3-7) at least one time next week.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Coach Bob Anderson. “But it’s like I told the team, we’re really not satisfied with just making the playoffs. Once you get in there, it’s kind of a crapshoot and anything can happen.”

The Knights received a strong performance from sophomore pitcher Armando Cervantes, who improved to 6-0 overall and 4-0 in league, and from Brian Papia, who retired the last two batters in the game to notch his sixth save. Papia replaced an ineffective Erik Russell, who relieved Cervantes in the sixth.

Cervantes worked five-plus innings, giving up two hits, three walks and striking out five.

“Cervantes has been our guy all year, and he himself was a little disappointed that he couldn’t go the whole way,” Anderson said. “And Papia knows what we expect of him, even though I did go into a little more detail about what we needed before I put him in tonight.”

Russell retired the first batter in the seventh but walked the second and gave up a double to Robert Rivera that put the tying runs in scoring position with one out.

Papia relieved and struck out Hector Rodriguez on three pitches. He then induced Eric White to pop to rightfielder Andy Branch, who made a run-saving, diving catch that ended the game.

“I’ve been in a couple of big situations before, but this was the biggest I can remember in a long time,” said Papia. “My main concern was just throwing strikes.”

The Knights scored two runs in the second when Joe Ezzolo led off with a walk and went to second on Branch’s infield single. Mike Hall doubled home Ezzolo, and Hall scored when Cervantes reached on an error.

Bishop Montgomery extended its lead to 6-0 in the fourth.

Branch led off with a single and went to third on Hall’s base hit. Cervantes’ sacrifice fly scored Branch, and Hall scored when Curtis Bowman grounded into a force out. After Dudley Callahan singled, Russell’s triple scored Bowman and Callahan.

But Bishop Amat jumped back into the game in the sixth with four runs. With three already across and the bases loaded with none out, Hector Rodriguez hit a high chopper to third baseman Callahan, who gloved the ball and threw home for the force. Catcher Walter Knutsen’s relay to first was wild, but first baseman Ezzolo retrieved the ball and threw back to Knutsen to nail Eric White, who was trying to score from second.

Wade Kennedy drove home Greg Moreno with the fourth run of the inning with a sharp single to right.

Callahan, Russell, Branch and Hall had two hits apiece for the Knights.