Panthers whip Bruins in baseball
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By DAN CLENDANIEL
For the News & Messenger
Published: May 14, 2008
For the News & Messenger
The season of the “Unpredictable” continued for the Potomac baseball team.
Potomac coach Mike Covington admitted that he had district championship aspirations for this group at the start of the year. But the Panthers have had an up-and-down district season, including a seventh straight loss to Forest Park last month.
Settled into fourth place in the Cardinal District and playing for little other than momentum-building for next week’s district tournament, the Panthers denied Forest Park the out-right district championship with a 9-2 win.
Ryan Moriarity went the distance on the mound for Potomac to improve to 5-1 while first baseman Zack O’Connor delivered five runs batted in.
Once again, Covington was left scratching his head. His Panthers (14-6, 6-4) erupted for eight hits and nine runs just one day after garnering just two hits in a 3-2 loss to Woodbridge.
“I have no idea what to expect of this team in the tournament,” said Covington. “We could win three straight or be out in one. I don’t mean to be flippant. That’s just the way we are.”
Forest Park (14-5, 8-2) must now wait for the results of the Vikings’ final two games against Gar-Field and Hylton. Should Woodbridge win both, they would tie the Bruins for the regular season title and a tentative playoff game would take place on Monday at a neutral field.
“This could be good for us,” said Forest Park manager John Colantuoni. “I’m concerned because we’re not peaking and good teams usually start to peak at this time of year. But I have nine seniors and I told them where they go from here is up to them.”
Potomac’s O’Connor homered in his last at-bat one night earlier against Woodbridge and continued his hot hitting against Forest Park.
O’Connor hit a bases-loaded double in the first inning that scored three runs for the key hit of the game.
O’Connor later blasted his second home run in two nights, a two-run shot in the fifth inning.
“We knew we had nothing to lose tonight,” said O’Connor, “and maybe this picks us up going into the playoffs.”
Almost as important as his hitting was O’Connor’s fielding at first base. O’Connor dug at least four errant throws by his infield teammates out of the dirt to help keep Forest Park from a big offensive inning.
Moriarty, in his second consecutive strong start, scattered four hits for the win. Moriarty also had eight strikeouts.
Moriarity gave up two runs in the sixth inning on hits by Taylor Herrell and Alex Jabs. But the hard-throwing right hander rebounded in the seventh inning to set the Bruins down 1-2-3 for the complete-game win.
Potomac scored a total of seven runs in the first two innings. Tyler Easterly and Ryan Easterly singled and scored in each inning to account for four of those runs.
“We’ve struggled in the first two innings of a lot of games this year,” said Colantuoni. “Facing Mo (Moriarity) or a Tyler Easterly, you’re not going to come back at this time of year like we have in the past.”
Forest Park’s Bobby Schweir, who defeated the Panthers, 6-5 earlier in the season, took the loss and fell to 6-3.
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