Bishop McNamara wins first All-City title in 10 years with shutout at Kankakee

KANKAKEE – Anchored by an abundance of arms in their pitching staff and a steady senior core, the Bishop McNamara baseball team felt pretty good entering the season about the same three main goals they set every year – winning the All-City championship, winning their conference and making a postseason run that includes at least one postseason plaque.

For the first time in a decade, the Fightin’ Irish checked that first goal off their to-do list.

Anchored by four strong shutout innings from Jacob Lotz, 10 hits from nine different players and a steady approach that yielded eight walks and a pair of hit batters, McNamara went to Kankakee and earned a 13-0 win in five innings Friday. Following Thursday’s late-inning 7-3 comeback win over Bradley-Bourbonnais Thursday, the Fightin’ Irish (19-6) are All-City champions for the first time since 2015.

“There have been a lot of good teams to come before us in that 10-year span that made a run at regionals, but hadn’t gotten this done,” senior Dom Panozzo, who had a two-run single and scored as the DH Friday, said. “Obviously we’ve got work to do on the regional (and conference) side of things, but tonight was the first step of real success and something that means something.”

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Bishop McNamara's Taylor Fuerst fields a ground ball during a game at Kankakee Friday, May 9, 2025. (Mason Schweizer)

Thanks to Callaghan O’Connor’s sacrifice fly that scored leadoff man Taylor Fuerst, Lotz had a 1-0 lead before he took the bump for a perfect bottom of the first, a lead that steadily grew as the Irish amped up their production with runs in every inning.

They scored another in the second when Fuerst’s sac fly scored Panozzo, doubled their lead to 4-0 in the third when Panozzo’s single drove in Coen Demack and Devin Arbour and then swelled with a three-run fourth and six-run fifth.

“The sticks were rolling,” Lotz, who walked none and struck out nine in his four shutout innings, said. “I knew we were going to hit, it was just, get out there and throw strikes. … Throwing strikes, working ahead. They were aggressive hitters, so working the edges and pounding the zone."

Fuerst was 2 for 3 with a triple, a stolen base, three RBIs and a pair of runs before pitching a hitless fifth inning. O’Connor singled, scored and tallied a team-high four RBIs. Arbour, Demack and Max Rohr all had a hit and scored twice.

After opening the year with a five-game winning streak that included four shutouts, the Irish have caught fire again as of late, with Friday increasing their current season-high winning streak to eight. They host Hope Academy Tuesday for their Chicagoland Christian Conference finale, and a win would give both teams the CCC split with 11-3 records, the next goal they’re looking to cross off.

“I told those guys before the season that this is a special group,” Irish head coach Kurt Quick said. “Good senior leadership, we’re talented, we’ve got pitching. You want them to buy into the culture, and they are.”

The Kays (8-16) were on their own season-high four-game winning streak before losses to a pair of local Class 2A powers, 12-0 at Wilmington Thursday and Friday’s All-City loss. But with ace Byron Wills on the mound today, the Kays entered Friday with a whiff of optimism in the air on their bus ride home from Wilmington.

“We’re on the way back like, they came back and won, why not us?,” Kankakee head coach Nick Crowe said. “We’ve got Byron on the mound, why not play a little spoiler and get a three-way tie for All-City?”

Wills reached his pitch count limit after four innings of work, allowing seven runs (four earned) on six hits and walks apiece. Eli Stipp and Alexander Grill had the Kankakee hits.