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Photo by Tyler Buzy Senior Ryan Kunst stares down a Churchill runner from the mound during the final game.

As the school year winds down and the spring showers slowly fade into the long summer hours, the varsity baseball team’s season comes to an end. A season filled with home runs, strikeouts, tough losses and exciting wins, let’s cap off the Patriots’ great baseball season.

The Patriots finished their season off with a record of 11-7, not including the playoffs. The Patriots ended the month of April with a game at Rockville on the 27th. It was a hard-fought game, but the Pats came up short by a score of 3-1. The boys started the month of May at home in a game against the Einstein Titans on the second. It was a close game all the way to the end, but the Patriots pulled out on top and won 2-1. The next day, the Patriots traveled to Gaithersburg to face off against the Trojans on the third. The boys won this game in dominant fashion, with the final scoring being 6-0. The Patriots capped off the week in an away game against the Northwood Gladiators on the fifth. They had another dominant effort, winning the game 12-1 and capping off a 3-0 week. “We felt good about winning every game that week,” senior Prahlad Shelvapille said.

The Patriots finished off the regular season at home on May 8 in a matchup against the Poolesville Falcons. The boys battled tough and won the game 5-2, capping off their regular season. Coming off of four straight wins, the Pats were eager for a first-round playoff matchup against their rivals Churchill. “We felt ready heading into playoffs and were excited to try and make a run,” senior Brandon Sun said.

On May 11, the boys hosted their playoff game against the Churchill Bulldogs. This was a heavily anticipated matchup, with the boys winning their first game against them earlier in the season 8-6. With a huge crowd and perfect weather for a baseball game, the Patriots headed into battle against the Bulldogs. The game was much slower than the first one, with less scoring and better pitching. The Bulldogs came out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Pats didn’t stop fighting. They crawled their way back and eventually made the score 2-1. But with the tying run on second and in scoring position, some controversy struck. Captain Josh Erd had a hit and got onto first base, but the Churchill coach pointed out that Erd’s bat didn’t have a nub on the end, which is illegal. The umpire called him out and the runner on second who had advanced to third was forced to return to second.

The game ended shortly after that, and the Pats season came to a close.