The baseball team has had a decently successful start to the season, posting a 3-2 record.
The team took on Churchill on April 6 and won 3-0. It was their third game in three days and a strong showing in the first away game. Churchill didn’t score thanks to sophomore Dev Zoks who threw a seven inning complete game shutout. One run was scored by the Patriots in each of the first two innings, and one more was scored in the fifth, was the icing on the cake.
The day before that they played Damascus at home. Even though they won during their spring break tournament, they lost this round 6-2. After two innings Damascus was up 3-1, and their stellar pitching only allowed the boys to put up one more run.
The team took on Blake on April 4 and won in convincing fashion 15-0. The game ended after five innings due to the mercy rule. They scored 10 runs in the first inning; by far their most in an inning this season. Senior Gabe Pollack pitched to start the game, but other pitchers were subbing in and out the rest of the game. JV’s game was cancelled that day, so the entire JV team dressed for the varsity game. Since they were winning by double digits after the first inning and for the rest of the game, JV players played sporadically for the last few innings.
The team had a spring break double on March 26 to kick off their regular season against Whitman and Damascus.
The first game was against Damascus. It was a full on domination, as there were six runs by the Patriots in the first two innings. Junior captains Harrison Cance and Ryan Mariani each hit two run homers in the bottom of the second to make it 6-1. In the fifth junior Greg Urovsky hit a solo homer to further extend the lead. The team took off early in the game and never let go of the lead, winning 10-2. “We played well against them the first time; it’s unfortunate we couldn’t keep that up the second time,” Pollack said.
The Whitman game later that day was a different story. It was a disappointing 9-8 loss, though the comeback effort was almost successful. Whitman was winning 9-1 after the top of the fifth inning. Wootton scored twice to make it 9-3 going into the sixth. Then they didn’t score in the top of the sixth, and Wootton went into the bottom of the inning knowing that they needed to get the offense going to get back in the game. They ripped off five runs that inning to make it 9-8 with one inning left. Nobody scored in the seventh, so the game ended 9-8, though the team used that late game momentum to have quality practices before beating Blake 15-0.
On April 9 they played Springbrook at home and won 12-2.
They played April 11, too late to be covered in this issue, the team plays tonight at Magruder.
Max Pasternak
Senior Longform Editor
