Pope Loses Fourth Straight 13-5 In Tough Saturday Matinee

Calvary’s Abraham Alejandro bats against Pope starting pitcher Alex Bialakis.

The end of a long week of baseball for the Pope John Paul II Eagles came on Saturday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale in a tough 13-5 loss to Calvary Christian.

Pope (3-4) also was on the wrong end of a close district contest with Summit Christian and suffered a lopsided defeat to King’s Academy this week after starting the season 3-1.

But despite these difficult losses, Pope coach Peter Graffeo remains upbeat and positive regarding the direction of his club.

“We’re a young team, and we’re taking our lumps,” Graffeo said. “But it is better to compete with these tough teams. This makes us a better baseball team.”

Compounding the loss, and in some ways contributing to it, was the loss of freshman starting pitcher Alex Bialakis, who left the game after being hit in the face with a comebacker off the bat of Nick Kumar.

Bialakis never went to the ground, but was clearly dazed and needed to be helped off the field. Preliminary diagnosis was a concussion, and the right-hander was taken to a hospital for further diagnosis.

Zander Retema (number 4) went 2-for-2 with an RBI.

The scary moment occurred amidst a three-run fourth inning by Calvary (5-3), the last run coming across on Kumar’s hit as none of the Pope players were able to reach the ball in time to prevent the run from scoring after the ball had hit off of their starting pitcher and died on the infield grass.

Calvary’s rally came just after Pope had pulled within one run following a three-run fourth inning themselves. Senior Anthony Pianta had a one-out single to ignite things, Evan Schaffner drew a walk and catcher Zander Retamer singled to center field to drive Pianta home. Senior second baseman Robert Gerdung then came through with Pope’s biggest hit when he drilled a shot to deep left that drove in both runners for a standup triple that now found the visitors only trailing 5-4.

Gerdung had a big day, going 3-for-4 with a stolen base and three RBI. Retamer, the team’s starting catcher who is playing through a broken finger on his left hand, went 2-for-2 with an RBI and also reached in his third at-bat on a walk.

Calvary put the game away with three more runs in the fifth and another pair of runs in the sixth.

“I’m proud of the way they battled back,” Graffeo said. “We’re just trying gauge ourselves and be ready for the end of the year.”

Pope managed a run in the seventh when Connor Norton walked, stole second and came in to score on a wild pitch. But Calvary recorded the final three batters in order to close it out and squash any hopes of a magnificent comeback.

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