Baseball: Mt. Carmel’s Curtin tosses no-no in dominant DH sweep of Richards

By Steve Millar
Correspondent

Shane Curtin’s Mount Carmel teammates made it a short outing for him on the mound.

The senior pitcher made it a dominant one.

Curtin, a Creighton recruit, threw a five-inning no-hitter as the host Caravan rolled to a 10-0 win over Richards in the opening game of a doubleheader on April 16.

Mount Carmel (14-4) completed the sweep over the Bulldogs (3-8) with a 9-0 one-hitter in Game 2.

In the opener, Curtin walked Cole Maranda, the second batter of the game. Maranda was the only Bulldog to reach base as Curtin retired the next 14 hitters.

Curtin struck out seven.

“All the pitches were on,” Curtin said. “I was getting a lot of groundballs, and that was the key because I know I can trust guys behind me to make plays.

“Them putting up eight runs in the second and not a single error in the field, they make it easy on me.”

Mount Carmel coach Brian Hurry made sure Curtin got some of the credit that he tried to pass on to his teammates.

“Shane is a bulldog out there,” Hurry said. “He pitched ahead in the count and really was commanding all his pitches. He’s a tough competitor. He did what he had to do. He competed and executed his pitches.”

With Curtin, Julien Hachem (Oklahoma), Elias Hachem (Evansville) and Michael Kelly (Western Michigan), the Caravan have four pitches committed to Division I schools.

Hurry sees them all feeding off each other.

“They’re in the weight room together,” Hurry said. “They’re in the bullpen working together. It’s a really special feeling, the camaraderie they have.”

Curtin said that he, Julien Hachem and Kelly are similar left-handed pitchers.

“It’s almost like a little competition, especially when you have three lefties all with the same kind of stuff,” Curtin said. “It brings out the best in all of us.

“We’re always comparing pitch grips and finishes and we learn a lot from each other. We’re all lefties, but we all have different offspeeds that we can show each other.”

Mount Carmel broke open the game with an eight-run second inning on just four hits, as the Caravan took advantage of three walks, an error and a hit batter.

Oklahoma recruit Brandon Rogers produced a two-run single, coming up with the bases loaded and shooting a line drive into left field.

“I was just looking to get a nice little poke, get myself on and try to get as many runs as possible,” Rogers said.

Rogers went 2-for-3, while Myles Supurgeci was 2-for-2 with two RBIs.

In the second game, Mount Carmel led 3-0 after four innings before breaking it open with a six-run fifth.

Colin Horneman had the big blow in the fifth with a two-run triple.

Supurgeci had another two-hit game and drove in a run, while Danny Quintero threw six shutout innings and allowed just one hit, striking out 10.

Santiago Rios had the lone hit for the Bulldogs with a double and also threw two innings in relief, allowing one earned run.

Sean Cody had a solid outing on the mound as well for Richards, throwing two shutout innings and striking out one. The Bulldogs were hurt by five errors.

Richards is trying to turn things around after losing four of its last five. The one victory in that stretch was a 12-11 win over T.F. South on April 15.

Christian Rosales went 4-for-5 with two RBIs in that victory, while Maranda and Kevin Golinski also drove in a pair of runs.

Mount Carmel, meanwhile, has won 13 of its last 14 games after a 1-3 start.

“We were slow coming out of the gate,” Hurry said. “We were trying to figure out our best lineup and we’re still in the process of doing that a little bit. We’re becoming a team. Our chemistry has improved. Our approach at the plate has improved.

“We’re a team that’s going to feed off our pitching staff and then offensively, we just have to have competitive, grind-it-out at bats.”