St. John's ace has upper hand.

Byline: Kevin O'Malley

WORCESTER - With scouts from no less than five major league baseball teams standing behind the backstop watching every move made by St. Peter-Marian senior southpaw Keith Landers, St. John's senior starter Peter Chunis quietly stole the show yesterday, combining with Andrew Colebrook on a two-hitter to lead the No. 2 Pioneers to a 2-0 win.

"Peter Chunis, he's a captain; he doesn't say a word and he was nominated by his teammates because he leads by example," St. John's coach Charlie Eppinger said. "There is not a harder worker on our team, you can only match him, you can not work harder than Peter, so he deserved that. This is the third time we've seen Keith in a starting role and he is a tremendous talent. He's got an outstanding future and I tip our hats to our guys who believed they could win."

St. John's second straight win evened its record at 3-3, while dropping the previously top-ranked Guardians, now No. 5, to 1-3.

"You like to win ball games, especially when you get off to a 2-3 start, this gets us to .500, and hopefully it accelerates us," Eppinger said. "It's a league win, it's a win on the road and it's just an outstanding job by two senior pitchers."

Chunis allowed two hits in 5-2/3 inning. He fanned two and walked one before being relieved by fellow senior Colebrook with Frank Flynn on third base with two out in the bottom of the sixth and a 1-0 lead.

"You got to hit to win and I tip my hat to Chunis, he did a good job and they played well, what else can I say," St. Peter-Marian coach Peter Coyle said. "It's a long season, we're playing everybody. We've got 16 games left to get our act together."

Colebrook closed the door on the Guardians, getting Julian Concepcion to pop up to first. He did not allow a hit in the seventh.

"Andrew worked real, real hard in the offseason; he's worked very hard and he wants the ball in big situations," Eppinger said.

St. John's designated hitter Jon Massad made it a 2-0 game in the top of the seventh with an RBI double to the fence in right-center that plated John Andreoli, who had reached base on the Guardians' fifth error.

Landers went the distance for St. Peter-Marian, holding the Pioneers hitless into the seventh inning.

He struck out 12 and did not walk a batter.

Landers hit St. John's leadoff man Trevor Larson with his fourth pitch of the game. Larson took second on SPM's first miscue when Landers threw the ball away attempting to pick him off first base.

Larson alertly took third on a dropped third strike and then scored when Flynn threw the ball away trying to gun him down at third after making the putout on the strikeout.

Landers prevented further trouble by fanning the next two batters to end the inning and then got into a groove.

NAME: ST. JOHN'S HIGH SCHOOL; ST. PETER-MARIAN HIGH SCHOOL