June 9, 2004
by Nathaniel Levy

BVB strong defense overpowered in championship
Entering the May 17 championship game, the Lions varsity baseball team felt ready to take a second stab at the pitcher who had shut them out in a prior meeting.

However, Kevin Sweeney, the St. Anselm’s Panthers’ senior ace who in the two teams’ prior meeting no-hit the Lions, again used his arsenal of fastballs and curveballs to propel the Panthers to a 6-0 win.

photo by Zachary Krame

Junior pitcher Gabi Weisel pitches against St. Anselm’s in a 6-0 playoff loss May 17.

The Lions found themselves in a hole after only the first inning, in which the Panthers jumped to an early 3-0 lead. This inning set the tone for the rest of the game—Sweeney retired the first three Lions batters he faced and the Lions committed a few costly errors in the field. According to junior catcher Sam Cutler, such fielding mistakes were uncharacteristic of the Lions’ play throughout most of the season.

“[Our fielding] was extremely out of the ordinary. We were probably the most solid defensive team in the league until that game. We just got a couple bad hops that went through the infield and they broke it open that inning,” said Cutler.

Sweeney’s dominance, a complete game eleven strikeout performance, made it even more difficult for the Lions to crawl back into the game.

“We probably needed to have our best game offensively. We needed to hit him [Sweeney] consistently, and we didn’t. And we had a couple of base-running mistakes that hurt us also. I don’t know if we needed to play perfectly, but we definitely needed to play our best game of the season,” said Cutler.

With the exception of a small number of hits, which came sporadically for the Lions, Sweeney was virtually untouchable.

“His curveball killed us,” added Cutler.

Sweeney’s 9-0 season demonstrated that he is not only one of the dominant pitchers in the PVAC, but that he should be regarded as among the best talent in the Washington area, according to St. Anselm’s Head Coach Paul Wofsy.

Sweeney will go on to pitch for Division III Catholic University in Washington, D.C. “The Catholic University coach came out and saw him and said he’s definitely going to be pitching for them next year. He’s already as good as their number four starter and on any given day he can be as good as any of their starters,” said Wofsy.