Baseball: Pioneers 14, Wood 4

Posted: April 23, 2013
By GREG BRILL
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER —When Millbrook’s baseball team first played James Wood back on April 5, it appeared the Pioneers left their gloves back at home.

No, not the mits that keep you warm. This is speaking of the kind that usually help you make plays in the field to keep your team in the game.

On that day at R. Charles Hott Field, Millbrook must have dreaded the number eight. It lost by eight and it had eight errors in the field to help the Colonels along.

In the rematch on Monday night at Millbrook, the Pioneers kept it clean — playing errorless in the field and taking advantage of a 12-hit attack to bounce James Wood 14-4 in a Northwestern District game shortened to five innings due to the run rule.

Millbrook coach Brian Burke said his team kept an 11-3 loss to the Colonels fresh on its mind and was determined to prove it could do what was needed to get itself out of tight spots.

And those moments were trying at times. Matt Hendershot and Austin DeTray combined to walk eight and hit three more, but the Pioneers (7-8, 4-3 Northwestern) faced limited damage due to their defense playing with more urgency.

In the second inning, shortstop Jacob Jaye turned a double-play off of Carder Smith’s grounder, and the Pioneers closed out the fourth with a 6-4-3, twin-killing that involved Jaye, Bruce Keenan, and Hendershot, who moved to first when he left the mound during the third inning.

The poor fielding that had been such a letdown in the first meeting for Millbrook was nowhere to be found.

“That was a little bit of a motivational factor, with how they got embarrassed at their place,” Burke said. “[They] didn’t play good defense, really didn’t swing the sticks. If there’s been a thorn in our side, it’s been our defensive play.

“But to be able to come out and get out of key situations like we did defensively tonight [was huge].”

Millbrook began to get on a roll not long after that lopsided loss to James Wood. The Pioneers have now won five of their last six, and could be 6 for 6 if not for blowing a two-out, one-run lead in the seventh inning last week at Sherando before losing in nine innings to the district leader.

Millbrook had a big inning early and had another offensive explosion in the fifth to get the run-rule result it had hoped for against James Wood (4-8, 1-5).

James Wood starter Colin Benner retired the Pioneers in order in the first, but the second frame was anything but kind to the sophomore right-hander.

Benner opened the second by giving up two walks, then a two-base error on a bunt by Hendershot allowed the first run to score and sent out a bad omen for the Colonels.

Matt Amos went the other way with a solid single to right to drive in two runs, then the Pioneers scored four runs with two outs.

Keenan (3 for 4) slapped a fly to center that got over KaCee Duggan’s head and dropped for an RBI double, freshman Trenton Burgreen had a hit-and-run single to left to plate Keenan, and Ryan Hartigan blooped a fly into shallow center that dropped in. Hartigan hustled his way into second when the bag went uncovered, and two more runs scored off the hit for a 7-0 lead.

The Colonels stayed in it with a pair of runs in both the third (Millbrook issued five walks in the inning) and fifth (Andrew Kennedy and Canon Cochran had run-scoring hits), but the Pioneers closed things out during their turn in the fifth.

Against James Wood’s third pitcher, Russell Repasky, the Millbrook bats finished with a flurry.

Needing four runs to gain what was needed for the run-rule, the Pioneers took advantage with key hitters up.

An unearned run was the first across in the inning, but Millbrook also got some heavy hiting from the meat of its lineup. With two outs, Hartigan (2 for 2, three runs scored, three RBIs) ripped his second double of the game for a run-scoring hit, Zach Hughes had an RBI triple to right-center, and Hendershot ripped a shot up the box for a game-ending RBIsingle.

“The bottom line is the offense stepped up tonight when we didn’t get our best outings from our pitchers,” Burke said. “We’ve got to learn to pitch with a lead, but luckily, offense stepped up for us.

“... It was a real good sign there [in the fifth], sitting on the fastball and looking for line-drives. When you’ve got your four, five, and six guys [in the order] doing their jobs, that sure made it real nice for us.”

James Wood was missing several starters due to either injury or disciplinary reasons, but even so, the Colonels found themselves far overmatched on this night by Millbrook’s efforts.

“Winners have a hatred for losing and all your greats have a fear of losing, and they do whatever they need to do to make sure that happens,” James Wood coach Jared Mounts said. “Right now, [our mindset is] we’re accepting losing. We’re OK with that.

“Until we can figure out that losing is not acceptable, then we’ll start winning baseball games.”

The Colonels will have to put this lose quickly behind them. On deck is a game at Handley on Thursday, a team that inflicted an 11-0 run rule loss on James Wood a few weeks back.

“This one’s over and we’ll have to correct our mistakes,” Mounts said. “I firmly believe that there is potential within this team. But everyone’s got to look within themselves to make that change.”

The hits by Kennedy and Cochran in the fifth were the only ones recorded by the Colonels.

For Millbrook, freshman catcher Alex Amos (1 for 3, three runs scored, three stolen bases) and Detray (first pitching win) also provided sound support.