Battlefield pitching staff’s theme powers victory

By BEN TRITTIPOE For the News & Messenger
Published: March 27, 2008

“Get Ahead and Dominate” is the theme for the Battlefield pitching staff this season, and the whole team took a page from their book to defeat Potomac in a non-district baseball game Thursday in Haymarket.

The host Bobcats “got ahead” as they combined timely hits and a Potomac error to build a five-run lead, then they held off a Panthers rally until senior pitcher Matt Crouse could “dominate” over the final two innings to clinch a 5-4 Battlefield victory.

The Bobcats (2-4) got started early as they scored twice in the first inning, again in the third and twice more in the fourth to take a 5-0 lead. Senior Evan Scott, usually a leader on the mound for Battlefield, did it with his bat Thursday as he drove in a run with a double in the first and brought home another with a single in the third.

“Evan’s been hitting the ball hard, but he’s had nothing to show for it,” Battlefield head coach Matt Caudle said. “I told him to keep swinging, that they were bound to fall in eventually. They finally did tonight.”

A key play came in the bottom of the fourth with Bobcat runners at second and third base with no outs. Tyler Viera came on to pitch for Potomac (2-2), relieving starter and losing pitcher Mike Judge, and with the infield playing in, Chase Garris greeted him with a hard shot to the right side.

Panthers second baseman Edgar Quinones dove to his right to stop the ball and threw to first for the out. Bobcat Joey El-bisi had not broken for home from third, but pinch-runner Korbin Doss was nearly to third.

Potomac first baseman Zack O’Connor threw toward third base, but his throw sailed down the left field line and both runners scored for a 5-0 Battlefield advantage.

“We’ve had a poor exhibition of baseball in all four games we’ve played,” Potomac head coach Mike Covington said. “That play at third, we make that play 100 times out of 100 in practice. We can’t seem to get out of our own way, and it’s not our younger players that are making the mistakes.

“We’re better than what we’ve shown on the field, and it’s disappointing. I don’t think that it’s anything physical, and I don’t know how to fix the mental.”

Meanwhile, Battlefield starter Danny McDonald had blanked the Panthers through four innings. He allowed just two hits and struck out six to earn the win, but he walked six and his lack of control led to an elevated pitch count and forced him from the game prior to the fifth.

“When he’s on, Danny is tough,” Caudle said. “But he just had too many four-pitch walks.”

Potomac finally got its offense going against Bobcat reliever Cooper Bull. Tyler Easterly walked to lead off the top of the fifth inning and went to third on a double by Tyler Covington. Ryan Mosi-arty brought both runners home with another double, and after O’Connor walked, Bull left the mound in favor of Garris.

Kyle Viera sacrificed to advance the runners, but Mosiarty was caught in a rundown when Alex Mastro tapped back to the pitcher. Quinones followed with a two-run single to pull the Panthers within 5-4, but Ryan Easterly grounded out to end the threat.

When Josh Turner led off the top of the sixth with a double, Caudle had seen enough and sum-moned Crouse from center field. The fireballing left-hander struck out the first two batters he faced on six pitches, then he caught Turner straying off second to record the final out of the inning. In the seventh, Mosiarty worked a walk in a 10-pitch at bat and then stole second, but Crouse struck out the next two batters and got a weak grounder to end the game with the save.

“He’s a tough kid,” Caudle said of Crouse. “We didn’t want to pitch him tonight, but I ran out of options and had to go to him.”

Despite the slow start, including a 1-3 record in a Spring Break trip to Florida, Caudle is pleased with what he has seen thus far from his Bobcats.

“They’re way ahead of us down there,” Caudle said of the Florida teams, some of which had al-ready played 20 games. “But it gave us a chance to find out what we had. We’re hitting the ball better than we did last year, and with our pitching, if we can score 4-5 runs a game, we will win a lot of games.”