Bishop McNamara’s Dominic Panozzo stymies Wilmington

KANKAKEE — Bishop McNamara pitcher Dom Panozzo put added weight on starting the baseball season with a flourish.

After a junior season that was stunted by injury the Illinois State recruit has been tirelessly working to insure that his senior season would turn out better.

It certainly looked like effort well spent as Panozzo was dominant in a five inning stint on Monday against Wilmington as he struck out nine and led the Fightin' Irish to a 3-0 opening day victory.

“This has been a long time coming,” Panozzo said. “Just last year with the whole battle with injury and not really being myself and then kind of having to take a long time finding myself over the summer. So, just starting out on the right foot feels better for sure.”

Wilmington, the third place finisher in last year’s Class 2A State Tournament, returns several key components from last year’s squad, but they struggled to get anything going against the flame throwing Panozzo from the outset.

Ryan Kettman led off the game with a clean single for the Wildcats and moved up to second on a wild pitch, but when Dierks Geiss rolled out to third, Kettman was cut down trying to move up from second to third on the play, completing a relatively rare 5-3-6 double play. Panozzo then recorded the first of his nine strikeouts to get out of the inning.

From there, it was pretty much smooth sailing for the senior. He faced one above the minimum in the first five innings, issuing a one-out walk to Drew Jackson in the third, and didn’t allow a single ball other than Kettman’s first-inning single to leave the infield.

“I really only threw three of the five today, just a fastball, two-seamer,” Panozzo said. “Finding that fastball this year has been the biggest change in who I am as a pitcher. A lot of that comeback from rehab and just getting comfortable again, and just throwing fastballs and trusting the arm.”

It took Panozzo just 70 pitches before giving way to Callaghan O’Connor, a Notre Dame commit, who recorded five strikeouts in the final two innings of work for an Irish pitching staff that head coach Kurt Quick believes could be something really special.

“We told both those guys, you know, they are both D1 commits, go out and pitch like you’re a D1 commit,” Quick said. “And that’s what they did today and that’s what we expect.”

Bishop McNamara’s offense wasn’t robust, but the Fightin' Irish might not need it to be with the wealth of its pitching staff.

The Fightin' Irish took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when O’Connor reached on a error, moved over to third on a Max Rohr single and came home on a Jacob Lotz RBI.

Another Wildcat error in the third inning extended things long enough for Devon Arbour to rocket a double into the gap to plate two runs. Arbour would add another double in the Irish half of the sixth.