Landry (LSU) is LCS Most Valuable Player

Box Score │ LCS Stats

Friday, August 1

By Zach Stone

Youse's Maryland Orioles defeated the College Park Bombers, 11-1, to win the 2008 Cal Ripken, Senior Collegiate Baseball League Championship Friday. The Orioles went 3-0 in the playoffs after winning the regular season title with a history-making 35-7 record.

While the Orioles earned a bye into the double-elimination round, the Bombers had to play five games in three days. Needless to say, the College Park pitching staff was running on fumes. Mike Bell (Southern Polytechnic) started and allowed back-to-back singles to open the game. Both runners came in to score on a triple by Leon Landry (Louisiana State), who later scored on a sacrifice fly.

Clay Duncan (Bowling Green) relieved Bell and allowed an inherited runner to score before settling in. After facing only eight batters the entire season, Duncan kept the game close, retiring the Orioles in order three straight innings.

Meanwhile, the Bombers managed to scratch one run across against Orioles starter Max Russell (Florida Southern). A Marty Baird (Bowling Green) single plated 2008 batting champion Mike Celenza (Salisbury) in the fourth inning. Celenza had walked to lead off the inning. Russell tossed eight innings for the O's, allowing the lone run on four hits with nine strikeouts.

The Orioles finally got to Duncan in the sixth inning, scoring three times on singles by Patrick Long (Georgia Tech) and Patrick Blair (Calvert Hall (MD) HS), and walks by Landry and Nick Natoli (Towson). In the eighth, Long blasted a two-run homer over the tall section of fence in right-centerfield.

Kevin Jacob (Georgia Tech) pitched a scoreless ninth inning for the Orioles, who earned their first Cal Ripken, Sr. League Championship.

This was the final game for College Park manager Gene Bovello, who is retiring after more than 58 years of coaching in amateur baseball.

Landry was named the D-Bat Most Valuable Player of the League Championship Series. Including his two-RBI triple which proved to be the difference-maker in the Championship Game, Landry went 7-for-13 (.538) with a double, a triple, seven RBI and four runs scored for the O's in the playoffs.