LANCASTER, Pa.  — The Catholic baseball team had an opportunity to move on to the Landmark Conference championship with a victory over the third seed Scranton on Saturday afternoon. A four-run second inning set up the Cardinals starter Roman Tozzi to pitch seven strong innings to help Catholic to a 7-2 win to advance to the championship and extend its season-long win streak to nine games. 

The Cardinals four-run rally was set up by Zach Burton and Matthew Fisher who singled and walked respectively to put two runners on with no one out. Jack Bateman moved both runners up on a sacrifice bunt and then an error was made by the Royals on a fly ball to right field to bring Burton in to score. Steve Thomas notched the first big hit of the game when he ripped a triple to left field, passed the dive of the left fielder to score Fisher and Justin McCarthy. Joe Marini tacked on the final run of the inning with a sacrifice fly into left field to put the Cardinals up 4-0.

Tozzi was nearly untouchable over the course of the first five innings as he allowed just two hits while punching out four to keep Scranton off the board. Marini would add an insurance run for Catholic in the top of the sixth as he crushed a 3-2 pitch over the high wall in right field for his third homer of the season to push the lead to five.

Scranton finally broke through in the bottom of the sixth when Jake Elston ripped a solo homer just inside the foul pole down the right field line to make it a 5-1 game. The deficit was cut down to three by the Royals in the bottom of the seventh when TJ Pleban came up with a two-out RBI single back up the middle. Tozzi struck out the last batter he faced, swinging to close out a solid seven inning start for himself.

The Cardinals added another key insurance run in the top of the eighth after Marini reached on an error to start the inning. Mitchel Johnson followed up by lacing a double into right center to bring Marini in to score all the way from first to make it 6-2. One more run would be added in the top of the ninth as Thomas smacked another extra-base hit into right center for his third RBI of the game to extend the lead back to five.

Mac Meara got the job done out of the pen for the Cardinals, tossing two shutout innings with three strikeouts to finish off a five-run victory for Catholic's 26th win of the year. Catholic now advances to the championship and will need to be beaten twice to lose the series. The Cardinals will try to capture their first Landmark Championship since 2018.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• Thomas continues his assault on the Catholic single-season record books, scoring his 54th run of the season to take over the program-record. With another double today, he moves into a tie for seventh with 17 doubles. His 63 hits is in a tie for sixth as well. 
• Johnson added three hits and a walk, tying him with Dante Pozzi for the single-season record with 43 walks drawn. He added a double for his 20th extra-base hit of the season. 
• Tozzi, the team-leader with 69.1 innings pitched, dropped his ERA to 3.76 while picking up his sixth win of the season. His six strikeouts give him six starts this season with five or more punch outs. 
• The Cardinals are now 27-24 all-time in Landmark Tournament history, improving to 10-6 all-time against Scranton.