CTK 2 Molloy 1

It doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot to make the CHSAA playoffs. Sure, some good teams don’t make it, but if you have a talented No. 1 starter, your chances are pretty good.

To contend for a title, however, a team needs to get contributions from other players who didn’t do much during the regular season. For Christ the King, that player is Ken Gleason.

He pitched superbly and then ended the game in the bottom of the seventh with a bases-loaded single to right through a drawn-in infield to give CTK (12-10) a 2-1 win over Archbishop Molloy (17-7) yesterday at Mount St. Michael. The victory propelled the Royals to today’s matchup against Mount at Fordham and ended Molloy’s season.

“All year long, Kenny wasn’t pitching as much as he should have because he’s a junior,” CTK coach Nick Melito said. “But Dimitri [Giannois] is one of the best pitchers in the city, so he gets to be first.”

With the way Gleason performed yesterday, it was hard to tell that he wasn’t the premier player on the field. He pitched into the seventh, gave up just five hits and two walks before Leon Kruset came in to finish the inning after Gleason tired. Gleason was reinserted (at DH) in the seventh and slapped the game-winning hit off of Gary Kaible, who relieved Molloy starter, Bill Delmore.

To get to Gleason, Molloy head coach Jack Curran elected to walk the No. 3 hitter, Giannois.

“I thought [Giannois] was their best hitter,” Curran said. “I figured Gary could strike out the next two guys.”

Gleason had his own ideas.

“That made me want to get a hit even more,” Gleason said.

Which he did, allowing CTK to come back from what seemed to be a nearly insurmountable 1-0 deficit. Between the second and fifth innings, CK never got more than one batter on base at once.

“I thought we might win 1-0,” Curran said.

That hope ended in the sixth when one of CTK’s few seniors, Eugene Brooks, led off with a monstrous home run to dead- center, just clearing the 380-foot sign.

“I was just praying that one went out,” said Brooks, who had popped out with a runner on second in third. “I just saw the ball and hit it.”

Molloy’s batters had sent a few shots to deep left field earlier in the game, but Joe Roman hauled them all in, including one that sent him tumbling over the fence. That was just one of the fine plays CTK made in an incredibly crisp error-free game on both sides.

“They played flawlessly,” Curran said of the Royals. “Sometimes it’s just not meant to be.”

Gleason made sure of that and also made his name known.

“He might have gotten a scholarship today,” Melito said.