Mullin directs St. Joe’s Prep to win over O’Hara

GOOD THING the pitcher's performance didn't match the bus driver's.

Otherwise, pretty much every toss out of Tom Mullin's right hand would have found the screen instead of the strike zone and his stint would have experienced early termination.

As St. Joseph's Prep's baseball squad traveled to Cardinal O'Hara for a Catholic Red contest Tuesday, Mullin camped out in the back of the bus and tried to relax by listening to music coming through headphones.

In time, on multiple occasions, he found himself thinking . . .

Hey, we shouldn't be turning that way.

"We have a lot of guys from Delco on our team," Mullins said, referring to Delaware County, "so it wasn't like we didn't know the way.

"The guy kept making wrong turns. We were on West Chester Pike all the way down by Lawrence Road. It was like he was taking us to Bonner instead of O'Hara. Some of the players were speaking up . . . "

He laughed. "It was like he wasn't hearing. Like he didn't understand what we were telling him. He was saying, 'I can't go down that road.' He took the worst way possible."

Eventually, the Hawks did make it to O'Hara, and Mullin directed them to a 3-0 win.

The 6-3, 200-pound senior, a Penn State signee, twirled a two-hitter with seven strikeouts and kept anyone from advancing past second base. To boot, he recorded four assists and caught two popups, and the second ended the game.

Because O'Hara's hurler, junior righty Will Latcham, was also impressive until some seventh-inning hiccups - he owned a no-hitter through 5 1/3; Pat O'Dell broke it up with a ground-ball single to center; finished with a four-hitter - the game required just 1 hour, 41 minutes.

It started 7 minutes late.

"I wasn't sure how everything would turn out," Mullin said. "Once we got here, we had to rush a little. My pregame warmups [before going to the mound] weren't as long as I would have liked, so I treated the first inning like the last part of getting ready."

Not that the frame lasted too long.

First pitch to John Banes. Bouncer back to Mullin. First pitch to Scott Grinnan. Ditto. Nick Donovan singled to right, then Bob Ieradi chopped one on the third-base side. Mullin pounced and got the out. Three immediate assists. Not bad.

As Mullin pointed out, much of the credit for how he now pitches can be traced to his infielding endeavors.

Two winters back, a coach with the Philly Bandits noticed that Mullin mostly threw sidearm after gloving grounders at third base.

"He told me, 'You should try that on the mound,' " Mullin said.

He added, "I did it a little bit last year and it went pretty well. Now I do it a lot. It gives me a different look. Gives the batters something else to worry about. It adds movement to my pitches, especially down. I threw all sidearm through the end of last summer and I did that today through the whole seventh inning."

Groundout. Flyout. Popout.

Mullin, among others, appreciated the chance to get out of the cold.

"The weather conditions weren't good, but you have to deal with that," he said. "You can't control it. Just don't let it affect you. It'll be like this a lot at Penn State."

The Prep scored a gift run in the first as Jawan McAllister took the game's first pitch in the back, advanced on a pickoff throw that wasn't handled, then a groundout, and scored on a sac fly to left - sac bullet, actually - by Shane Williams.

The Hawks' last-inning uprising began with two away when Tim Rafter and Chris Martin milked walks. Soph Dino Cattai, the designated hitter, lived up to his job title by smoking a two-run double into the right-center gap.

Mullin this season is 2-0 against O'Hara. The first win was particularly hairy as the Hawks scored three in the home seventh to triumph, 3-2.

"We knew they'd battle us. They always do," Mullin said. "[Latcham] was throwing great. He had a heavy ball. It was a very competitive game and my team kept me in it."

Mullin lives not far from O'Hara, in Springfield, and his cousin, Molly Rafferty, a junior, pitches for that school's softball team.

Afterward, Tom, Molly and other family members gathered not far from the Prep's bench.

Did any choice comments come out of Molly's mouth?

"She was glad I pitched well," Tom said. "Just wished it wasn't against O'Hara."