Charles Kruzits, Baseball 2007

Kruz News

Charles Kruzits, a senior at Archbishop Wood and former baseball player, still loves the sport and has offered to do reports on the Vikings. He is headed for Monmouth University, where he hopes to double major in criminal justice and journalism. If the surname looks familiar, his brother, Mike, was a standout linebacker for Wood. Thanks for expanding our baseball coverage, Charles.

Charles may be reached at ctkruzits@hotmail.com.

Ryan 4, Wood 2
Battle of the Pitchers
Today was a great game in which both Wood's Mike McCauley and Ryan's Jim Edelman pitched complete games. Both pitchers were excellent but one had to lose and unfortunately it was McCauley. McCauley dealt with very feisty hitters from Ryan, who rarely looked at any pitches. The nominal mistakes McCauley made were capitalized by Ryan hitters, including Kevin McGovern and Rob McArdle, who both had doubles for RBIs. Jim Edelman gave a lot of trouble to the Wood offense which only had four hits. The defense for Wood was very shaky allowing several errors. There was a scary moment in the game when Frosh Brian O'Grady attempted a steal and a Ryan infielder landed on top of him. However O'Grady walked off under his own power and was fine.
Sitting outside the fence beyond centerfield were the All Catholics with a few more additions: Matt Little (Football), Pat Graham (Cheerleading), Bob Kane (Soccer) and Dan Comas (Basketball). The All-Catholics were kicked out of their original spot by the infield umpire because they gave Wood an unfair advantage? That's what Archbishop Wood is about: GREAT SCHOOL SPIRIT!

Slocum's first career start at home
To most of the players this game was of little importance, but not to Wood's senior pitcher, Dan "Hatfield Quality Meats" Slocum. Even though Dan pitched in several games last year he never started at home. To Dan's dismay he did not pitch the way he would have liked; he struck out six but allowed 5 earned runs (the other two were on errors). McDevitt came out swinging mainly scoring their runs off a grand slam hit by Mike DeCristafano in the top of the 5th inning. Wood only had 6 hits but managed to register 7 runs off skilled base running. The younger players on Wood stepped up to the challenge, The frosh sensation, Brian O' Grady, had a double and walked twice and also had 2 ribbies. The player of the day goes to super sophomore Jim Heilman. Jimmy Heilman only had one hit, a two-RBI single in the 6th, and Wood didn't let the guard down. In the 7th inning Wood took Slocum out and replaced him with Junior Pitcher Pete Gubicza. Pete came in and pitched very good to close the game successfully.
Winning Pitcher- Dan Slocum
Save- Pete Gubicza
Player of the Game- Jimmy Heilman.
Wood also had a extra boost when the All-Catholic fan club arrived with their grill and radio handy. They didn't do much cheering but the school spirit had the team excited. The All-Catholics were Fran McGlinn (Basketball), Tim Young and Ed Schwartz (Football), and Scott Hordis (Soccer).