West Roxbury, Mass. — The ping of a baseball getting smacked across the baseball diamond was all too common for the Catholic Memorial baseball team against St. John’s Prep.
Needing only one win to take the Catholic Conference Championship, the Knight beat the Eagles 20-5 to top the conference for the 12th time and for the first time since 2010.
“All the credit to these kids. I mean they've worked hard, obviously. You get better in the course of the year, but also a lot of these guys work really hard in the off-season playing for their AAU teams, doing individual workouts, and just working hard at baseball,” head coach Hal Carey ‘95 said.
The Knights pulled away with the game tied 3-3 in the bottom of the second. With the bases loaded, Gabe Malaret ‘25 smacked a grand slam into center field to put CM up by four. Malaret went yard again in the next inning on a two-run shot that put the team up 11-5.
“The thing about Malaret is that he has a really good eye, he's really just someone that knows the strike zone, and he hasn't been overmatched by anyone this year,” Carey said.
Entering the fourth inning up seven, the Knights put eight more runs on the board to trigger the 10-run rule that allows games to end in the fifth inning.
In addition to Malaret’s two-home run performance, Connor Coulter ‘22, Nick DiRito ‘22, Sam Deraney ‘22, John Gannon ‘22, Scott Longo ‘25, and Joey Borelli ‘22 all had multi-RBI efforts.
On the mound, Drew DeLucia ‘22 threw a complete game, striking out six and walking three.
Following the win, the Knights completed Catholic Conference play with a 3-1 win over St. John’s Shrewsbury to finish the regular season with a 9-1 conference record.
The regular season ends on May 28 with Senior Night against Boston Latin School and the MIAA Division 1 Tournament starts the following week