Brophy15
Hamilton 10
By Ian C. Beck ’12
THE ROUNDUP
There were fireworks going off in the Phoenix sky Friday night April 23, a display put on by the Arizona Diamondbacks who had just beaten the Philadelphia Phillies.
The fireworks might not have been intended for the Brophy Broncos baseball team but as they watched them past the left field wall of Opus Field, the Broncos cheered in celebration of their own meaningful victory.
By beating the Hamilton Huskies 15-10, the Broncos upset the top ranked team in the state and the fourth ranked team in the entire country.
The win was also the 600th career victory for head coach Mr. Tom Succow, who has been the head coach for Brophy for 33 years now.
The Broncos had a fireworks display off their own, lighting up the scoreboard with 14 hits and 15 runs over the course of seven innings.
AJ Steimel ’10 had a pair of RBI doubles, Kevin Kennedy ’10 had a bases clearing, three-run double in the fourth and Kasey Coffman ’10 had a two-run home run over the right field wall in the sixth.
The Broncos fell behind 1-0 after the first inning but tied it on a Steimel double then allowed a pair of runs in the top half of the second.
Emilio Torrez ’12 and pinch runner Alex Muecke ’10 scored on an error by Hamilton third baseman Trent Goodrich in their half of the second inning to tie the game at three.
Hamilton tacked on three runs in the third inning, all of them coming off errors by Brophy third baseman Coffman.
Starting pitcher Dave Graybill ’12 was pulled with two outs in that third inning, replaced by Evan Quinn ’10.
Graybill went two and two-thirds innings, allowing six runs ,only three were earned, on five hits and two walks. According to Mr. Succow, it was the first time the sophomore had pitched in several weeks.
Brophy bounced back from a 6-3 deficit with a six run outburst in the bottom of the fourth. Coffman was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring home a run, Kennedy cleared the bases with a double that gave Brophy their first lead of the night at 7-6 and scored on a double by Torrez. John Rapisarda ’12 chased home Torrez with an RBI double of his own to cap off the scoring spree.
Hamilton tied it with three runs in the top of the fifth but Brophy regained a 10-9 lead in the bottom half on Steimel’s second RBI double of the game.
Brophy broke it open in the sixth when they scored five runs on a three-run double from Chris Beall ’12 and Coffman’s two-run homer to right.
“The kids battled hard today and that means a lot for us getting ready for the state tournament,” Mr. Succow said after the game.
