Baseball: Handley 11, James Wood 0

Posted: April 10, 2013
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Their record may not indicate it, but the Handley baseball team has played well this season.

Four losses in the first six games may not be the results they were hoping for, but three of those were one-run defeats and Judges’ coach Eddie Simmons liked what he saw from his ball club.

From quality at bats to solid defense, Simmons knew if his team continued to play the way it had things would eventually start to fall into place — much like they did Tuesday afternoon.

With senior Taylor Sandroni looking as good as he’s had all season on the mound, Handley’s offense tagged four James Wood pitchers for 13 hits on the way to an 11-0 win that only lasted five innings at R. Charles Hott Field due to the run rule.

The Judges scored in all five innings, Sandroni allowed only three hits while striking out five and junior leadoff hitter Andrew Lins and senior third baseman Reagan Potts combined for seven hits and five RBIs in the win.

It was the kind of effort that may have surprised some in the stands, but not those in the Handley (3-4, 1-2 Northwestern) dugout.

“Outside of one game this year I’ve pretty much liked the way our kids have played every night out,” Simmons said. “We’ve had three one-run losses and one game where we didn’t play well against a pretty good team (an 18-3 loss to Sherando). So I like what they’re doing.

“They work hard in practice, they come and prepare themselves for this situation and it’s nice to see them have the opportunity to come out and actually succeed on the field. They did a great job tonight.”

While the offense made most of the noise, it was Sandroni’s performance that had to be the most encouraging for the Judges.

Having struggled with his control at times this season, the senior right-hander was dominant from the start.

Locating his fastball on either side of the plate and throwing his curveball and change-up for strikes, Sandroni needed just 66 pitches to get through all five innings, retiring the side in order in the first, third and fourth innings.

“I haven’t been able to get my off-speed stuff across the past few games, so I was pretty pleased with that today,” said Sandroni, who did not issue a walk and also picked off a runner at first. “Any time you throw strikes you’re going to have success and my teammates definitely came out here and backed me up today.”

If Sandroni looked relaxed on the mound it was because he had plenty of cushion to work with all game long.

The Judges jumped on James Wood (3-6, 1-3 Northwestern) right from the start, pushing two across in the first inning on a sacrifice fly from senior Malachi Hill and an RBI single from Potts (4 for 4, two RBIs).

Lins would chase Colonel starter Carder Smith in the second inning with an RBI single that plated teammate Brian Thomas before everyone got in on the action in the third.

Benefiting from a pop fly that dropped between James Wood reliever Justin McDonald and catcher Cohen Kerns and the ensuing throwing error by McDonald, Handley sent 11 batters to the plate in the third inning, totaling seven hits and six runs to push the lead to 9-0.

“After the last three or so years we’ve just been really bad, so for us to finally be able to have a productive offense is really relieving, because we’ve just been terrible,” Potts said. “This is what we’re capable of doing now.”

The Judges would score runs in the fourth and fifth innings to put the game away as the Colonels simply had no answer.

James Wood committed three errors, issued five walks, hit a batter and looked nothing like the team that handled Millbrook 11-3 just four days earlier.

“We’re just an inconsistent team, we’ll come out some games and play well and put it all together, and then other games we’ll come out and look like we did tonight,” said James Wood coach Jared Mounts. “I think a lot of it’s just the mental approach to the game. you just have to find that consistency. Everybody has to look within themselves and figure out what they need to do to find success.”

Senior second baseman Russell Repasky (2 for 2) had two of the Colonels’ three hits, including a double down the left-field line, and senior left fielder Mark Villarreal finished 1 for 2.

Lins went 3 for 4 with three RBIs and two runs scored at the top of the order and junior Blaine Homan (1 for 2 with two walks) and senior Jacob Rudolph (1 for 3 with a walk) each scored twice in the win.

“It’s not a question of can they hit, they’re a pretty confident group and they understand what they’re capable of,” Simmons said. “They know every time Taylor takes the mound they have a chance to win and he did a phenomenal job of getting our hitters right back in the dugout. It was just a great night all around for everybody.”

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