NEW MIDDLETOWN — For the fifth consecutive year, the Warren JFK Eagles are baseball district champions.
Much like last year’s seniors, Kennedy’s Class of 2025 clinched a district title sweep Saturday in New Middletown with a 9-1 win vs. Kidron Central Christian in the Division VII, Northeast 1 final.
“[We’re] just trying to build the basis of a culture and expecting the incoming freshmen or transfer to pick the system up, pick the culture up, fit right in and go with it,” JFK head coach Jim Ciambotti said of the program’s sustained success. “And the older kids have done a great job of showing the way, and these kids have followed right with it.”
Although they would struggle much more later on, the Comets experienced some degree of success facing Eagles starting pitcher Freddy Bolchalk early.
Over the first two innings, Central recorded four hits and put two runners in scoring position. However, Bolchalk and the Kennedy defense escaped the innings without surrendering a run.
Comets starter Bryan Martin was not so lucky.
Dom Ryan’s single to lead off the bottom of the second inning sparked three runs, the first of which Brennen Sanata brought home with a hit by pitch. Lucas Morrison then drew a bases-loaded walk, which led Central to replace Martin with Dominic Gasser. Gasser immediately walked Landon Snyder as JFK extended its lead to 3-0.
Soon thereafter, Bolchalk settled in, retiring six consecutive batters despite concerns the Comets had picked up on the signs Kennedy pitching coach Carmen DeChristofaro was signaling to Snyder from the dugout.
“Every time I seemed to be throwing my changeup, the other team was calling it out, looking for changeup and stuff,” Bolchalk said.
Bolchalk voiced his concerns between innings to DeChristofaro, who was initially skeptical that the Comets actually knew the changeup was coming. His skepticism later proved to be well-founded, as Bolchalk kept throwing it and having success.
“Sometimes, there’s some things that are being yelled out,” DeChristofaro said. “A lot of times, teams are just trying to get as many advantages as they can, and you can’t blame them for that. But at the end of the day, Freddy’s gonna throw his pitches. We got a lot of faith in Freddy to throw his pitches, and at the end of the day, you got to be able to make contact on whatever he brings.”
Bolchalk remained consistent despite an unearned run coming across the plate in the fifth inning, when an errant throw from Snyder toward second base hit a runner and bounced into the outfield.
After the error, Bolchalk retired seven straight batters to finish his complete-game performance, which included five hits, no walks and nine strikeouts.
The Eagles gave Bolchalk some run support late as well; Taggart Carfangia drew a bases-loaded walk for Kennedy’s fourth run in the bottom of the fifth before all nine batters came up to the plate for JFK in the sixth inning as Central allowed five runs while using three pitchers. Trevin Rinck and Carfangia each drove in runs on hits during the inning.
Saturday’s win secured JFK’s annual spot in the regional tournament, although the path forward may be a tad more complicated than previously expected.
The game vs. Central was initially scheduled for Friday but was postponed due to rain until Saturday, which will force the Eagles to tweak their pitching strategy with only two days between games for Bolchalk to rest and reset his pitch count, instead of three.
“It had a little impact, I’m not gonna lie to you,” Ciambotti said of the postponement. “But it is what it is. We gotta deal with the conditions that were handed to us. We wanted to worry about winning today and [then] we’ll worry about next week. Obviously, he’s gonna have to sit three, four days, but we’ve got other kids to step up and throw.”
Kennedy is scheduled to play its regional semifinal vs. Northeast 3 district champion Ashtabula St. John on Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Oberlin.
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