Pioneers Shut Out Colonels

Posted: April 9, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — For a group that starts just one senior in the field and relies heavily on a handful of freshmen and sophomores, the Millbrook baseball team has looked pretty seasoned through its first six games.

Inexperience is supposed to show up in tight ball games, but the Pioneers have already proven they can win the close ones with three one-run victories in the first two weeks of the season.

And on Tuesday they showed they can pour it on as well.

Freshman starter Anthony Simonelli scattered four hits over six innings, the middle of the order combined for nine hits and eight runs scored and Millbrook rolled to a 10-0 win over visiting James Wood that was shortened due to the mercy rule.

“I can’t say enough about the attitude, the approach and the execution that I’ve seen this early on,” said Millbrook coach Brian Burke, whose team is off to a 5-1 start and a 3-0 mark in the Northwestern District.

“We’re notoriously known for slow starts, so this is a little bit uncharted for us. We weren’t sure what to expect because we’re still relatively young ... but these guys are finding ways to execute.”

It seemed like just about everybody that took the field for the Pioneers contributed in some way Tuesday.

All nine hitters in the starting lineup reached base at least once, senior pinch-hitter Austin DeTray delivered the clinching RBI single to drive in the 10th run in the sixth and Simonelli was masterful on the mound.

The freshman right-hander allowed the leadoff man for James Wood (4-2, 2-1) to reach in four of the six innings, but he never panicked and allowed his defense to make plays behind him all night long.

Sophomore catcher Alex Amos threw out Colonels senior Dakota Orndorff at third for the final out of the second inning, second baseman Bruce Keenan alertly snagged the ball out of the air after it took a bad hop off the chest of shortstop Jacob Jaye, stepped on second and threw to first for a double play in the fourth and Jaye doubled off pinch-runner Conor Babbington on a short pop fly in the fifth.

“The defense made a bunch of a good plays behind me tonight,” Simonelli said. “Bruce made a great play at second and I felt great after Alex threw out that guy at third. They just got me out of jams so I could keep going.”

Relying mainly on his fastball and curveball, Simonelli needed just 84 pitches to complete all six innings, striking out six, walking one and not allowing a runner to reach third base.

And the Millbrook offense did the rest.

James Wood senior left-hander Carder Smith managed to work out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the first inning by allowing just two runs, but his luck would run out in the third.

Starting with an infield single by sophomore Trenton Burgreen, the Pioneers strung together four straight hits, with the big one coming off the bat of freshman Connor Hartigan in the form of a two-run triple to the gap in right-center field.

Hartigan’s base knock made it 5-0 and ended Smith’s day, but Colonels reliever Dakota Orndorff couldn’t stem the tide as Millbrook added two more in the fifth on an RBI single from seven-hole hitter Michael Tinsman and another two in the sixth on singles by Hartigan and DeTray.

“They’ve got a great lineup, it’s tough to beat them when they put up 12 hits,” said James Wood first-year coach Brent Lockhart. “[Simonelli] did real well, he worked ahead, kept us off balance and threw strikes. He gave them a chance to win the game. We just didn’t hit the ball well tonight.

“It’s been up and down, we hit the ball fairly well at the beginning of the season but we just haven’t hit the ball the last two or three games. Our defense played well, but you’ve got to have all three phases of the game.”

Junior Kacee Duggan, senior Nick Goode, senior N