Friday, April 14, 2023

By Jordan Hirsh

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ. – The Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-1) improved their win streak to 6 in a row, with a 3-0 victory over the Ewing Blue Devils (1-4) on Friday.

The Irish got a stellar outing from junior southpaw, Chase Burrows, who tossed a complete game shutout. Burrows struck out 5 batters over his 7 innings of work and scattered 8 hits.

Burrows was in complete command of all of his pitches and kept the Ewing offense off balance the entire afternoon. He was able to stay down in the zone consistently and forced a lot of groundballs and weak contact.

“Couldn’t have done it without the team,” Burrows said, “[The fielders] made the plays behind me. It was a great team win.”

Burrows has now allowed just 1 earned run in 16.2 innings this season. He is a part of what has been a fantastic pitching staff for Notre Dame, as the Irish have now allowed just 2 runs over their last 4 contests.

Notre Dame had a quieter-than-usual day offensively, however, behind Burrows it was enough. The Irish opened the scoring in the 2nd inning when David Olenchalk drove in Jack Hughes on a sacrifice fly to right field. On the following play, another run scored when an error at second base allowed Logan Eilbacher, who doubled earlier in the inning, to cross the plate.

The Irish tacked on their third and final run of the game in the third inning on another sacrifice fly, this one off the bat of Brendan Buecker, which allowed Dom Vizzoni to come in and score.

Burrows, who cruised through most of the game, ran into some trouble in 7th. After retiring the first 2 batters easily, he then allowed 3 straight singles to load up the bases, prompting a meeting on the mound.

“[My coach] was just telling me to focus, lock in you know. Fielders lock in [and] make the play.”

Message received. Burrows was able to get the final batter of the game, Sam Simpkins, to roll a grounder to the shortstop, TJ Magliozzo, who knocked it down and flipped to 2nd in time.

Notre Dame will look to make it 7 in a row on Saturday, when they head to Montgomery High School to take on the 3-1 Cougars. As for Ewing, they will look to stop a 3 game losing skid on Saturday, when they head home to take on the 1-4 Triton Mustangs.