Braves ousted by La Plata

Baseball team falls in five innings

Friday, May 16, 2008

However, in Wednesday’s 3A South region quarterfinal contest with the No. 8 seed Chopticon Braves, the top-seeded Warriors more than made up for lost time with a 10-0 defeat in five innings.

The Warriors played No. 4 seed Huntingtown on Thursday in the regional semifinals, a game that finished too late for inclusion in this edition, with the winner moving on to face Westlake or Northern in the regional championship game, scheduled for Friday.

Lead-off batter Jordan McGraner fired a double off of his bat to open the game, and the Warriors never looked back from there.

A sacrifice bunt from Brandon Thomas moved McGraner over to third base, and two consecutive walks from Chopticon starting pitcher Tyler Summers loaded the bases. The Warriors then proceeded to score six runs in the next six at-bats.

New Braves pitcher Evan Heart hit batter Mark Anderson, bringing in McGraner from third for the first run of the game. A walk issued to J.B. Sapienza scored J.P. Pellecchia, and an error from right fielder Chad Bowen, off the bat of Ross Hunsberger, scored Mike Boyden for the third run of the game.

After a strikeout, La Plata starting pitcher Brett Irwin helped his own cause by hitting a two-RBI single into center field to make the score 5-0. Courtesy runner Charlie Sturman scored on a McGraner single in the next at-bat, his second hit in the inning.

‘‘It is always good to start off the playoffs the way we did,” said Irwin, who pitched the entire five innings and allowed two hits in the victory. ‘‘The rain did put us back a little bit; it put everyone back a few days. We came out and got off on the right foot, but it is all how you react [after the rain] and how you come out after it.”

As the Warriors scored its seventh run in the bottom half of the third, again off the bat of McGraner who went 3 for 3 with two RBIs, the biggest blow came off the bat of Sapienza in the fourth inning.

Sapienza sent a three-run home run over the center field fence to give the Warriors the 10 runs needed for a run-rule victory. However, per rules, the game had to go one additional half of an inning to make the contest official.

‘‘We knew what we had to do,” Sapienza said. ‘‘We have not played in seven or eight days, which seemed like forever, an eternity. We came out hungry, but we are looking at it one game at a time. We are not going to look past anybody.”

‘‘When we hit, we are a good hitting team,” Irwin said. ‘‘It is nice to get that run support; you can pitch with more confidence.”

Chopticon (8-11 overall) used four pitchers in Wednesday’s game. The Braves advanced to the regional quarterfinal after defeating No. 9 Lackey in the opening round.

‘‘We struggled finding a No. 2 pitcher this year,” Chopticon head coach Steve Williams said. ‘‘[Steven] Shorter was our ace. We have eight wins this year and he has pitched five of them, and the one he lost, he lost 2-1.”

Concerning the opening inning, Williams added: ‘‘We knew coming into today that if Tyler didn’t have it, we were in trouble. Unfortunately [La Plata] started the inning off with the double and then it was eight straight balls, and we had to start making changes.”

‘‘It was a nice way to start the playoffs,” La Plata head coach Dan DeVitis said, ‘‘but the sad thing is you really can’t relax and really celebrate a win [because of the scheduling].”

La Plata moved to 17-2 overall after the win.