In their last game at home in 2013 the Bucks County Centurions (2-8) called on their ace pitcher Patrick O’Leary and he delivered with a complete game over nine innings with seven strikeouts and two walks to hand his team a 10-1 win over the Delaware County Phantoms (1-9) on April 25 at Bucks County Community College.

O’Leary was locked in from the start and worked quick innings through the game, but pointed behind the plate at his catcher Drew Sica for the reason for his effectiveness.

“It was really pitch selection,” O’Leary said. “The catcher just set me up with some good calls and I just followed what he did and hit my spots.

The turning point in the game came in the sixth inning when the Centurions scored four runs in the inning with outfielder Joe Aloia’s triple driving in two runs. Aloia would add another triple later in the game as he would lead the Centurions with three RBIs.

“I struck out twice earlier and (Phantoms pitcher Christopher Catenacci) started throwing me a lot of curve balls, so I just tried to hit something up the middle and possibly the other way and he threw a really nice pitch so I just gave it all I had,” Aloia said.

Catenacci lacked control early, but did not fully pay the price until the sixth inning when he chased from the game after giving up seven runs while striking out only four and walking five over five and a third innings.

The Centurions got the jump on Catenacci right out of the gate when shortstop Zachary Stuebing hit a sac-fly to drive in the first run of the game after back-to-back singles from Andrew Check and Brandon Roman.

In the bottom of the third inning the Centurions nearly squandered a scoring chance with Roman and Check on second and third, but outfielder Erik Mazurkiewicz reached on an error that allowed both runners to score for a 3-0 lead. Phantoms third baseman Michael Calvecchio would bobble the potential ground out and overthrow Mazurkiewicz.

O’Leary would use the play as momentum and revert back to his early game form by dominating Phantoms hitters, striking out three of his next four batters at one point. O’Leary was dominant, but was also the beneficiary of stellar defense from Stuebing and Check.

Catenacci seemed to have settled down after his early struggles, but began to unravel in the sixth after allowing two straight walks that drew a meeting at the mound.

“I just had a rough day out there,” Catenacci said. “I felt pretty good going out there today, but then I tightened up and started losing my location out there.”

Catenacci would then give way to teammate Chris Desiderio, who would retire the next three men on only three pitches as the Centurions seemed eager to pick on the Phantom reliever.

Cruising into the eighth inning O’Leary was only at 78 pitches, but would see that number rise as an error would allow the Phantoms to get within 7-1. The Centurions would more than make up for that though in the bottom half of the inning when Stuebing, outfielder’s Mike Klimowicz and Chris Wall would add RBIs to extend the lead to 10-1.

Despite Centurion head coach Jeff Cochran warming up reliever Matthew Creevey, it was

O’Leary who would finish what he started for the win.

“Coach asked me what I wanted to do and I just told him that I wanted to come out and finish it because a couple weeks ago I tried doing it and I kind of ending up blowing it,” O’Leary said. “So it was a much better outcome than last time.”