Defense Wins Championship for St. Robert's Baseball Team

The seventh-grade boys baseball team at St. Robert's Catholic School recently took home the championship in the Peninsula Parishes/Schools League. 

The team beat San Mateo's St. Matthew's Episcopal Day School 2-1 last week in a seven-inning game that came down to whose gloves and pitches could keep the other team from scoring. 

"I give credit to my pitchers," said head coach Dennis O'Mahony. Pitcher Chase Coric kept the game close for six innings in the championship game and pitched until the fifth inning in the semi-final game against Our Lady of Angels School (Burlingame). 

"He was phenomenal in both games," O'Mahony said of Coric. 

Jakob Uriarte pitched the final five outs for St. Robert's and also closed the game against Our Lady of Angels. 

O'Mahony said the victory was well-deserved because the team (4-3 in the regular season) was ranked No. 4 going into the playoffs. The boys made it to the championship game last year, but came up short. 

That served as motivation for this year's team, he said. 

"We were really good because we started to put a lot of things together in the playoffs and we got some timely hits," he said. 

Overall, however, O'Mahony said the team's defense was the main factor that helped them finish this season on top.