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Lusby unable to get past Bowie
Strong pitching, rare homer tames Prowlers Legion team
Friday, June 26, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Lusby Post 274 shortstop Donnie Holtzclaw throws to first base for an out during Tuesday's 4-1 Legion loss to Bowie.
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After dishing out a standout pitching performance last Thursday, Lusby was on the receiving end of one Tuesday and the result was a 4-1 come-from-behind win by Bowie at Patuxent High School.
Lusby Post 274 (2-5, 2-2 Frank Riley League) received a stellar outing by Mike Mohler, who struck out 11 in a 3-0 complete-game win over Greenbelt last week.
This time it was Lusby's turn to be frustrated at the plate as Bowie Post 66 (2-5, 2-1) hurler Cory Altiene held the Prowlers to just four hits, none from the second through sixth innings.
"I was throwing over the top and then in the second inning I was throwing more three-quarters and I could rotate my fastball better," said Altiene, who played at Prince George's Community College last year but is mulling several college offers this summer. "And I got them off-balance with my curveball."
Altiene, who hadn't pitched in eight days, surrendered two hits each in the first and seventh innings and retired 13 of 14 through the middle frames.
He threw 82 pitches, 52 for strikes, and tossed less than 10 pitches in three innings. He needed just five pitches to get out of the third. "A lot of rest," Bowie head coach Chuck Wood said when asked why his pitcher was so good. "When he's on, he's on."
"He pitched his butt off," said Mohler, who was 1 for 3. "He kept us off-balance, that's what I think the real problem was. He's a good pitcher, probably the best we've seen this season."
Lusby appeared to be right on track defensively and offensively in the first inning. After yielding a leadoff double, Lusby starter Mike Sknerski retired the next three batters to extinguish the threat.
Then in the bottom of the frame, Lusby drew first blood when leadoff batter Donnie Holtzclaw reached on an infield hit, went to second on Sknerski's sacrifice bunt and scored on Mohler's RBI double.
"We had to start the game off right," said Mohler, a Calvert High School graduate who will attend The College of Southern Maryland in the fall before transferring to Rosemont (Va.) College. "We had a nice leadoff single by Donnie and a good bunt to move him around. I just had to make contact with the ball and put it in play."
Bowie tied the game on Christian Holmes' two-out single in the second and it might have been worse had it not been for a diving catch by right fielder Tim Campbell that robbed Kevin Beaver of a sure extra-base hit.
"Tim Campbell has come a long way," Lusby head coach Teddy Sknerski said. "He's not an everyday starter, but he's worked and worked and worked."
But Bowie put the game away in the third. Willoughby and Shane Stevens each led off the third with walks and that brought Adam Schene, who had blistered a line drive to the outfield, to the plate.
"My first at-bat [Mike Sknerski] gave me a first pitch fastball right down the middle," he said, "so I was looking for something down the middle early on [in the count]."
Schene then promptly tagged the first pitch from Sknerski and sent it well above the left field fence for a three-run shot.
"Adam hit the ball hard in the first inning and I told him, ‘If you hit it three or four feet in either direction, the ball would still be rolling,'" Wood said. "He said, ‘Coach, if I got under it a bit, it'd still be flying.' And then next at-bat, boom, there it goes."
The dinger was the first for Schene, at any level of baseball. Beaver later fetched the ball for his teammate.
But the homer also irked Sknerski, who then retired the next nine Bowie batters.
"It made me focus more on pitching," said Sknerski, who will be a junior at Patuxent this fall. "It made me mad and when I'm mad I throw strikes. I was in a groove."
Sknerski went 5 1/3 innings and surrendered five hits and three walks. He also struck out three.
Mohler came on and allowed one hit and walk. He also sent a laser line drive off the leg of Altiene with in the sixth.
"I got hit in the shin and it was swelling up," Altiene said, "so I couldn't land as well or get good velocity."
And in the seventh, Lusby showed its heart as it mounted a comeback bid. Matt Stearns bounced a one-out single and Corey Clarke added a two-out base hit. Holtzclaw was hit by a pitch to load the bases and, with the winning run at the plate in Sknerski, Altiene fell behind three balls, no strikes. But Altiene sent two strikes past Sknerski and then caught him looking at a controversial called third strike to end the game.
"The pitcher battled back," Teddy Sknerski said, "but at 3-2 [count] you have to protect the plate."
"I was nervous but I knew that once he got the first [strike] he would come back with the second," Wood said. "And when I saw the location [of the second strike] I thought, ‘It's over now. He's got it.'"
The first-year coach is pleased with his team's effort but not the dedication.
Dedication such as that by Mike Sknerski, who was throwing batting practice to Holtzclaw, more than 20 minutes after the game.
"It's so hard right now. I'm not used to this age level of not having the total commitment that I need," Teddy Sknerski said. "I think a lot of it is the older they get, the desire's not there. They'll be sorry when they get older and not have a place to play. The guys need to understand that to keep this [first-year] team going they need a commitment and keep showing up."
"We have a lot of potential on this team and we're utilizing it a little bit," Mohler said. "We just have to come together and play real ball. but we're not going full out to play ball the way we can play."
Results Bowie 4, Lusby 1
Bowie 013 000 0 – 4 6 0
Lusby 100 000 0 – 1 4 0
WP Altiene, LP M. Sknerski
Extra-base hits: 2B – Willoughby (B), Mohler (L), Thompson (B);
HR – Schene (B)
Profile: Teddy Sknerski
A behind-the-scenes look at the first-year coach of the Lusby Prowlers Post 274 American Legion baseball team.
Sknerski attended Frederick Douglass High School his freshman through junior years and was a two-year starter at shortstop.
He attended Lackey High School his senior year and graduated in 1984.
He worked for 10 years as an HVAC technician until a back injury prompted him to change careers.
Six months ago he founded Patuxent Striping, a parking lot maintenance company.
The 44-year-old has been a volunteer for Patuxent High School's varsity and junior varsity baseball teams the last four years.
He spent the last two summers coaching the Calvert South Junior American Legion team where his teams won 17 of 22 games. Last year, Calvert finished 10-2 and won the league championship and placed third at regionals.
He has been married to wife Renee for 22 years and they have three children; Nikki, 20, Mike, 17 and Jessie, 16. The family resides in Lusby.
