Junior righty Ryan Richer commanded a stifling arsenal of pitches and delivered a couple key hits to send Pennington past Princeton Day School, 4-0, securing the State Prep B championship for his team at Diamond Nation on Thursday night.
Pennington had lost in last year’s Prep B final to Gill-St. Bernard’s, so the Red Hawks exorcized some demons haunting their baseball souls for the past 12 months.
“Yes, that was a tough one,” said Pennington coach Steve Kowalski of his team’s 5-2 loss in the 2025 final. “We had some injuries late last year, but we had our staff all lined up this year.”
The 6-1, 200-pound Richer limited a pretty hot hitting PDS lineup of late to two hits over six innings, struck out 10 and walked two. The George Washington commit set the tone when he struck out the PDS side in order in the top of the first inning on a slider, curveball and fastball. He located those three pitches, and a couple of timely changeups with precision throughout a tidy 86-pitch effort. Richer certainly had a Division 1 look to him.
“I was relying on my fastball and working in my off-speed stuff,” said Richer. “I faced them earlier in the year, but this game was obviously better.”
Richer worked four scoreless innings against Princeton Day back on April 18, permitting five hits in an 8-0 Pennington victory. He struck out just three and walked none in that first encounter. “I think Ryan was a little more comfortable on the mound this time and trusted his stuff more,” said Kowalski.
Lefty fireballer Caden Burns got the last three outs in order in the seventh after a leadoff walk to Mark Chiavarone, throwing nothing but cheese at the final four PDS batters. He struck out two of them to give the Pennington staff 12 strikeouts in the game. Burns closed out the victory for Richer on April 18, as well.
Richer’s imposing top of the first inning was followed by a noisy bottom of the inning as Pennington (20-7) struck for two runs on four hits against PDS righthander Owen Ehrenkranz.
Princeton Day’s Gavin Ross fouls off this pitch on the way to a seven-pitch walk in the third inning of the Prep B Final on Thursday at Diamond Nation.
Pennington’s freshman lefty leadoff hitter Chase Hallett opened the inning with a hard single to left field on a 1-1 pitch from Ehrenkranz. Kai Itakura-Prepscius then hit a shot up the middle that shortstop Vince Filis did well to keep it in the infield but couldn’t get a handle on it as both runners were safe. Richer followed with a single to center field that loaded the bases.
Cleanup hitter London Rauls got a run home on a fielder’s choice grounder to second baseman Gavin Ross. Another infield hit, this one by Logan Oster, brought Itakura-Prepscius home with the second run of the inning. Oster then stole second to put two runners in scoring position with just one out.
But Ehrenkranz struck out the next two batters to get out of further trouble.
“That was a good start, but we were disappointed not to get more there,” said Kowalski. Those two strikeouts began a run of 10 straight outs by Ehrenkranz, whose fastball suddenly had much more life and his command of his curveball improved dramatically.
“He’s a good young pitcher,” said Kowalski. “We’ll see him for the next couple years.”
Princeton Day’s problem was they couldn’t solve Richer, though it appeared it just might in its second at bat.
A.J. Doran led off the second inning by hitting a slow roller down the third base side and easily beat it out for an infield hit. Richer buckled down and struck out the next two batters, though Doran reached second on a wild pitch before the first out. Dom Carabelli then hit a hard single to center but Braeden Leeds was playing shallow, forcing Doran to hold at third base. Then Richer struck out the next batter on three pitches, the last a curveball, to end the threat.
Richer would not allow another hit and just single walks in the third and sixth innings, before turning the game over to Burns.
The sophomore Ehrenkranz permitted four runs on seven hits, struck out seven, walked none and hit a batter, but was impressive in that he overcame a difficult start to keep his team in the game. Two of those runs and four of the hits had come in the first inning.
Leeds finally broke Ehrenkranz’s run of retiring 10 straight batters with a two-out single to left in the fourth inning. Ehrenkranz then got Bam Pelzer to fly out to left to end the inning as left fielder Doran made a nice running catch near the foul line.
Owen Ehrenkranz of PDS delivers a pitch to Kai Itakura-Prepscius of Pennington in the Prep B Final.
But Ehrenkranz found new trouble in the fifth as his pitch count broke through the 80 mark, a direct result of that rugged first inning in which he threw 31 pitches. He hit the No. 9 hitter, Jamir Conover, with the first pitch of the inning, then uncorked a wild pitch to almost immediately put a runner on second base with no outs.
The freshman Hallett then lined a laser of a shot the other way that landed right on the left field foul line and rolled to the fence. The double scored Conover easily for a 3-0 lead. Itakura-Prepscius’ fielder’s choice grounder got Hallett to third and he scored when Richer, at it again, singled through the middle of the diamond.
Richer would allow just one more baserunner over his final two innings, a walk to Princeton Day’s sophomore leadoff hitter Ross. It was Ross’ second walk of the game and he also stole two bases.
Both teams are loaded with underclassmen. Pennington starts four freshmen and just three seniors. Princeton Day had no seniors in its starting lineup Thursday night to go with two freshmen and four sophomores.
Additionally, both squads have very impressive young coaches.
Kowalski, in his 8th season at Pennington, has a 96-56-1 (.632) career record with the Red Hawks. Princeton Day coach Eric Schnepf has gamely turned a struggling Panthers program around in his four seasons at the helm. He has his 12-13 team on the precipice of finishing a season with a .500 record for the first time since 2017.