Bishop Ahr White team is finishing up strong

EDISON - After starting the summer 0-4, the Bishop Ahr Junior American Legion White team has won five of its last six games to improve to 5-5.

"The schedule has been a little kinder in the last couple of weeks," Bishop Ahr head coach Scott Runkel said. "We played some teams that we should beat and we were able to get the job done. The wins give us confidence to raise our level of play heading into the final stretch."

Bishop Ahr White closed last week with a 12-3 win over South Plainfield. The Whites got a monster performance from left fielder Danny Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick became the first White player to hit for the cycle this summer.

"Danny is one of three juniors on the team that is full of younger players," Runkel said. "He started off strong the first two weeks, and then we lost him for a couple of weeks because he was on vacation. I don't know what he did on vacation, but he's come back on fire. I'm starting to think everybody could use a two-week vacation."

Four different Bishop Ahr hurlers got some work in to combine for the victory. Tom Sullivan got the start and pitched two innings before handing the ball to Steve Kaiser. Kaiser gave the Whites another two innings and handed off to Anthony Moreno. James DeChristopher came on to close out the game with an inning of work in the seventh.

"We got a great pitching performance from those guys," Runkel said. "We've been able to put good pitching and hitting together as of late, and hopefully this is a trend we can continue with a busy week ahead."

After beginning the week with a home game against Metuchen on Monday, the Whites will host Fords VFW for a 5:45 p.m. matchup today. The team will end the week with a 5:45 p.m. road game against Perth Amboy at Rudyk Park July 14.

Pitcher Steve Godowski is expected to see work this week as he has been the team's most consistent hurler.

"Steve's been pitching and hitting for us all summer," Runkel said. "He and catcher Mike McConnell have definitely established themselves as leaders on this summer's team."

While McConnell and Godowski are picking up their share of headlines in the past couple of weeks, Runkel likes what he sees overall.

"To be honest, it really has been a total team effort these past few weeks," he said. "Hopefully, that will continue to be the case as we head into the final two weeks on the schedule."

- Shawn Layton