Baseball - Warriors 10, Colonels 0

Posted: May 20, 2015
By ROBERT STOCKS
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Sherando turned the page on a disappointing regular season by putting together its best game of the year against James Wood in the Conference 21 baseball quarterfinals.

Senior pitchers Adam Whitacre and Ty Michaud combined for a no-hitter and the Warriors’ offense totaled 10 hits in a 10-0 win over James Wood that was shortened to six innings because of the 10-run rule at R. Charles Hott Field on Tuesday night.

With the win, No. 6 Sherando (9-12) advances to face play No. 2 Millbrook, a 2-1 winner over No. 7 Loudoun County in Tuesday’s quarterfinal round, in Friday night’s semifinals at 6 p.m. at Millbrook.

“I told the players after that game that this was the first game this season that we put all four phases of the game together,” Sherando coach Pepper Martin said. “We got errorless defense and we made a couple exceptional plays, we got a lot of hits, but a lot of timely hits, to drive guys in and we ran the bases smartly and aggressively. We couldn’t ask anything more from them — this was a total team win.”

Sherando staked Whitacre to a three-run lead before he even took the mound.

Myles McPartland led off the game by driving a ball to left that short-hopped the fence for a stand-up double.

With one out, Connor Stevenson doubled to center to score McPartland. Frank Ritter, who walked on four pitches, later scored on a wild pitch by Wood starter KaCee Duggan, and Michael White’s two-out bloop single to right scored courtesy-runner Michaud with the Warriors’ third run.

After Duggan (4-5) allowed three runs on three hits in the first, Bryan Whitacre entered in relief to start the second.

Sherando’s hitters kept the pressure on against Whitacre. The Warriors top six hitters — McPartland (2-4 with two runs scored, RBI), Ritter (two runs), Adam Whitacre, Stevenson (2 for 2 with walk and hit-by-pitch), Pearce Bucher and Quentin Rohrbaugh — either scored runs or drove in runs in the first two innings.

Adam Whitacre had an RBI groundout and Bucher and Rohrbaugh followed with back-to-back RBI singles to stretch Sherando’s lead to 6-0 after the top of the second.

The Warriors added another run after an RBI single by McPartland to take a commanding 7-0 lead going into the bottom of the third.

That proved to be plenty of run support for Adam Whitacre (4-2), who no-hit the Colonels in a 4-2 win on May 5 (Wood scored a pair of unearned runs). He retired the Colonels in order in the first, getting a nice diving grab by Ritter at short on a line drive by Zach Thompson to end the inning.

The Warriors senior lefty got a pair of ground outs before striking out Kris Malsch to end the second and then struck out the first two hitters in the third before getting Bryan Whitacre to ground out to second to end the inning.

“It definitely helped me pitching knowing that my teammates were going to produce runs for me,” said Adam Whitacre, who held the Colonels hitless over his last 10 innings that span two starts. “I was just pitching to contact and letting my defense work out there. Everybody was working together tonight.”

Michaud came on in relief in the fourth and walked Duggan to start the inning, giving the Colonels their first and lone base runner of the game.

From there, Michaud retired the next three hitters, striking out Brady Hepner and then Eli Warren to end the inning.

Michaud, who kept the Colonels off balance by mixing his fastball and slider, struck out the side in the fifth, getting Joel Smith looking at called third-strike on a breaking ball to end the inning.

Sherando tacked on two more runs in the top of the sixth. Adam Whitacre got hit by a pitch from Kris Malsch to start the inning and then Stevenson walked.

Michaud’s RBI single scored courtesy-runner Tad Dean, and then courtesy-runner Aaron Banks scored on an RBI groundout by White to extend the Warriors’ lead to 10-0.

Michaud, a right-hander, worked his third consecutive 1-2-3 inning to end the game, striking out Reid Barber and Bryan Whitacre before getting Duggan to ground out to third for the final out.

James Wood coach Brent Lockhart said his team, who went 5-2 in conference play during the regular season, couldn’t get the bats going against Adam Whitacre or Michaud.

“We just couldn’t put the ball in play,” Lockhart said. “Nothing really went our way tonight. None of our pitchers had their stuff. We just couldn’t find the pitching or the hitting tonight. You have to have all three phases or you can’t be successful.”

Martin said he had two lineups made prior to the game, one with Adam Whitacre starting on the mound and one with Michaud starting.

“We decided that we didn’t want to leave any of our thoroughbreds in the barn,” Martin said. “I did that years ago and learned a valuable lesson.

“We decided to go with Whitacre and the way the game unfolded we were able to get Adam out after three innings. He only threw 34 pitches — that’s a bullpen. Michaud threw 42. When Ty’s on, he can beat anybody. We have both available for Friday now.”

Sherando now faces second-seeded Millbrook, who swept the Warriors during the regular season but the first meeting was a 6-5 loss in 12 innings.

“It’s always competitive and always intense [against Millbrook],” said Stevenson, who reached base all four times (and courtesy runners scored four times). “We just have to come out and do our thing and hopefully it resembles something close to what we did tonight and we’ll be in good shape.”

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