Bishop McNamara gets comeback All-City win over Bradley-Bourbonnais

KANKAKEE − Emotions can run high during All-City matchups, and they certainly did at times on Thursday as the Bishop McNamara baseball team hosted Bradley-Bourbonnais for what would be the third straight close game between the crosstown rivals.

While the Boilermakers (16-11), the reigning back-to-back All-City champs, won 2023’s matchup 6-2 in nine innings and took the 2024 game 4-1, this year it was the Fightin’ Irish (18-6) that came out on top. They came back from an early 3-0 deficit to win 6-3 and set up Friday’s matchup with Kankakee to decide the 2025 All-City title.

There was of course plenty of familiarity between the teams in Thursday’s game. Many of the players grew up around each other. Several even started their high school careers on the opposite side of the rivalry, including Dom Panozzo, Bishop McNamara’s starting pitcher Thursday who played his freshman season with the Boilermakers.

“Whoever’s in the box, it doesn’t change the job at hand,” he said. “My goal is to always focus on the job and the task and do whatever I can to get a win for the team. I try to look at it as a faceless opponent, but obviously it’s a little bit more fun when you’re playing guys you grew up around. It adds a little more energy.”

Panozzo struck out the side in the first inning before the Boilermakers loaded the bases in the second and got two runs when he hit Andrew Kubal and walked Sam Frey. The Boilermakers got one more run in the third on back-to-back doubles from Eric Rainbolt and Ty Alderson.

Callaghan O’Connor relieved Panozzo to start the fourth and tossed four hitless innings to close out the game, walking two batters but otherwise stymying the Boilermaker lineup while the Irish mounted their comeback.

“I was the starting pitcher in last year’s game and was middle relief my freshman year when we played them, but it’s really nice to get back in the win column against them,” he said. “It’s always fun.”

The Irish rallied for three runs in the bottom of the fourth after loading the bases with no outs off of Bradley-Bourbonnais’ Cody Freitas, who worked five innings and struck out six batters in total. Braylon Ricketts singled home a run before Preston Payne and Taylor Fuerst hit consecutive sacrifice flies to tie things 3-3.

O’Connor reached on a double in the fifth when his popup to shallow right field dropped between three defenders. Devin Arbour then reached on an error that allowed O’Connor to score and make it 4-3.

McNamara got some insurance in the sixth when Jacob Lotz hit a ball deep to center that cleared both the fence and the outstretched glove of a leaping Shaul.

“The whole at bat I was sitting on one I could handle,” Lotz said. “I got one I could handle, tried to hit it hard and find the barrel. It felt good, really good, that nail in the coffin there at the end of the game.”

After the game, a number of players stood and chatted on the field despite an atmosphere during the game that got a little heated at times. With the All-City stakes heightening things a bit, there was a bit of chirping back and forth between the teams and more than a little input provided by fans on both sides of the field.

Bradley-Bourbonnais head coach Brad Schweigert said he felt his team let the atmosphere throw them off at times.

“I think we got out of our game a little bit today,” he said. “This is a high-emotion game, a really important game for these guys in the crosstown classic, and we didn’t do a great job of settling into the game and the emotions a little bit got the best of us.”

For the Irish, awaiting after their All-City finale with Kankakee is a pivotal Chicagoland Conference game with Hope Academy on May 13. Coach Kurt Quick said he is trying to balance the usage of Panozzo and O’Connor with the future in mind, and both came through in the win Thursday.

“We have a conference championship, so in my head we’re trying a little bit of both,” he said. “We’re trying to win an All-City and we’ve got a chance to win the conference next week, so we need those guys to do that. Fortunately it worked out for the best.”