Millbrook Ends It Early With Colonels

Posted: May 2, 2014
By GREG BRILL
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Most teams would bemoan the prospect of having to practice inside for a week this deep in the season.

Not the Millbrook baseball team.

The Pioneers had not played in a week before taking the field against James Wood on Thursday night, as wet weather kept Millbrook inside to fine-tune all phases of its game to get ready for a busy stretch run this month.

Seven days later, it was the same old Millbrook. The Pioneers scored eight runs with two outs and Trey Braithwaite allowed one hit over his five innings pitched as Millbrook rolled to an 11-1 Northwestern District win.

The game ended early, with the Pioneers (12-1, 8-0 Northwestern District) scoring four runs with two outs in the fifth to pick up another win by run-rule. This one came about when Conor Hartigan hit what looked like the third out of the fifth with a high pop up just behind the infield dirt into shallow right field. Instead, the ball fell between three would-be fielders for a hit and Jacob Jaye crossed the plate to make it official.

Whether they make their own luck with hitting throughout the lineup, deep innings from starting pitching, and a smooth fielding bunch at every position, Millbrook, which last lost back in March to Broadway in its season opener, gets the job done game after game.

Practice makes good, and Millbrook coach Brian Burke is glad his team buys into whatever can make the team better.

“It was tough to get back out here with as much time as we spent in the gym this week,” said Burke. “But [Millbrook second baseman] Bruce [Keenan] eluded to it — we spent a lot of time on hitting in the cage this week. It was just more productive than just taking ground balls over and over in the gym.

“But, you know what, somebody’s always picking up the next guy. And that’s been the story so far.”

Millbrook beat Sherando 7-1 in its most recent game before Thursday by getting at least one hit from eight of nine starters and 15 total to earn its second win of the season against the defending Group AA champs.

One week later, Millbrook batters kept James Wood starter Noah Keller battling throughout, getting 11 hits against Keller and going 2 for 2 against reliever Carder Smith.

Seven of nine starters hit safely and Keller struggled when he didn’t throw strikes, walking six and hitting another batter.

Providing the spark on this night was leadoff batter Keenan. Swinging a very aggressive bat from the left side, Keenan went 4 for 4, scored three runs, and drove in three more.

The junior third-year starter was even part of two double plays turned in the field.

Each of Keenan’s at bats were quality.

In the bottom of the first, Keenan drove a second-pitch single up the box. He later scored as part of a two-out, two-run double to deep left-center from Hartigan (3 for 4, 3 RBI).

Matt Hendershot followed Hartigan’s double with one of his own to give Millbrook a 3-0 lead after one.

Keenan came up again in the second and grounded a single by James Wood first baseman Eli Warren for his first RBI, helping the Pioneers go up 5-0.

In the fourth, Keenan looped a shallow fly to right that fell and resulted in a double with his hustle to second. Keller, wildly, tried to pick Keenan off second, moving him a base closer to scoring, and Jaye finished the deal with his run-scoring single to right.

When Millbrook ended the game in the fifth, all five of its runs came with two outs, and Keenan was in the middle of it again. Keenan showed some muscle with his two-run triple to right to increase the lead to 8-1 at the time.

Two walks followed from Keller to end his time, Ryan Hartigan greeted Smith with a two-run single to left-center field, and Conor Haritgan got his pop up to drop for what might be the easiest RBI he will get this season.

“We’ve really focused on hitting a lot this week because we were inside a lot this week,” said Keenan. “My job is just to get on base.

“I tried a new batting [stance]. I adjusted up my stance a bit and felt more relaxed up there. I moved my hands down a little bit. I was a little bit tense up there, so I needed to calm down and stay within myself basically.”

Part of being successful has been keeping everyone on the same page. Productive hitting proved that again for the Pioneers, up and down the lineup.

“We always focus on keeping the inning going and, obviously, that’s what we did [Thursday] by scoring eight of the 11 [runs] with two outs,” said Keenan. “Our focus is just to know that the next guy up is going to do their job.”

Braithwaite was able to improve to 4-0 (second on the team, only behind Anthony Simonelli’s 5-0 mark) by allowing just one hit — a leadoff single to Kacee Duggan in the fourth.

Braithwaite threw 37 of 66 pitches for strikes and threw first-pitch strikes to 12 of 19 batters with basically one pitch working.

He got in trouble in the fifth with two walks and a hit batsman to begin the inning, but James Wood only got a run (scored by Nick Goode) when Kristian Malsch hit into a double play for the second time.

“He wasn’t able to establish that second or third pitch, so he was relying on that fast ball and maybe over throwing a little bit more,” said Burke. “He was pressing to spot it. But bases-loaded, no outs [in the fifth], and to only give up one run, he did OK.”

The Colonels (8-4, 3-3) have suffered a pair of lopsided losses in the last 10 days to district foes Sherando and Millbrook, and first-year coach Brent Lockhart is hoping his players come out of their recent funk.

“We just didn’t hit the ball again. We’ve been struggling at the plate, and until we start hitting the ball better and scoring runs, we’re just not going to be successful,” said Lockhart. “We’ve got a lot of team issues right now, let’s put it that way. Until we get the chemistry together with the guys, it’s going to be a struggle. We can be a lot better than what we showed [Thursday].”