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| Holy Cross baseball poses with the NVL trophy after winning the tournament final 3-1 over Seymour on Wednesday. |
Timely hitting and the pitching of Fran Phelan paced top-seeded Holy Cross baseball to a 3-1 victory over No. 7 upstart Seymour in the NVL Tournament championship game on Wednesday evening at Municipal Stadium.
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| MVP Fran Phelan threw a complete game for Holy Cross. |
Phelan yielded just three hits and worked around an uncharacteristic four Crusader errors in a complete-game win. It was fitting that Phelan fielded a comebacker and threw to first baseman Matt Bonvicini for the final out.
On offense, Holy Cross scored two runs to break a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the fourth inning. Adam Razza singled with one out, then stole second base. With two outs, Bonvicini beat out a slow grounder for an infield single. Tim Zipkus ripped a RBI double down the left field line to plate Razza, then Connor Goggin singled to left to score Bonvicini and put the Crusaders ahead 4-1.
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| A close play at home plate in the sixth inning went in favor of Holy Cross. |
In the sixth, Zupkus kept the lead at 3-1 with a big double play. Zupkus caught a fly ball to right field, then fired home to catcher Will Marshall. Marshall corralled the bouncing throw, but missed his initial tag. The home plate umpire didn’t call the runner safe, though, and Marshall bolted after the runner. The runner was called out on Marshall’s second attempted tag, Holy Cross had a double play and was out of the inning.
In the seventh, Phelan got grounders to second and short for the first two outs, with Bonvicini tagging the second batter for the out on an errant throw. Phelan then got a bouncer back to himself and finished the game off.
Razza drove in the game’s first run with a fielder’s choice in the second inning. Seymour got the run back in the third on a Holy Cross error, and the game was tied until the bottom of the fourth.
Next up for Holy Cross is the Class S state tournament, where it is the top seed. The Crusaders repeated the mantra “Five more wins!” in the postgame huddle, so they are not planning on being satisfied.
Much more tomorrow, including a photo album and video highlights.
