Baseball: Potomac Falls Completes Second Straight Undefeated Dulles District Run

Special to VivaLoudoun.com
(May 19, 2010) - With a 13-2 win Tuesday night against Freedom, the Potomac Falls High School baseball team swept the Dulles District regular season for a second consecutive year. After going 14-0 last year and losing five seniors, the Panthers continued their dominance by going 12-0 through the District this year en route to an 18-2 record.

Over the last three years, the Panthers have gone 60-13 with a Dulles District record of 43-3 including the district tournament. This year’s Panthers were led by Michael Lascomb, Ben Sweger and Ryan Mahoney. Lascomb batted .586 on the year and led the team with 16 doubles and 28 RBI’s while only committing one error at first base. Sweger batted .417 and led the team with 26 runs scored, 13 stolen bases and 72 attempts at shortstop while Mahoney batted .400 with 20 runs scored and 34 putouts in center field.

On the mound, Jackson Rogers went 6-0 while recording 37 strikeouts with an ERA of 2.61. Taylor Jernigan went 5-0 with an ERA of 1.80 while striking out 29 batters and Steven Fisher recorded 9 saves and had an ERA of 1.72.

On Tuesday night, the Panthers jumped on Freedom scoring four runs in the first inning. Sweger and Thomas Rea led off with walks before Mahoney, Ryan Miller, Lascomb and Sam Bass all hit consecutive singles to drive in three runs. Rogers completed the scoring by hitting a sacrifice fly to right. Freedom came right back and scored a single run on a walk to Brendan Shockley and singles by Matt Murphy and Matt Malacane.

Potomac Falls added single runs in the second, fourth and sixth innings on RBI singles by Mahoney and another run in the fifth on an RBI single by Rogers. With the score 8-1, Freedom responded by scoring a run in the fifth on an RBI single by Malacane. The Panthers added the finishing touch in the seventh inning with five more runs on RBI’s by Tyler Caldwell, Sweger, Mahoney and a two RBI double by Colin Deely.

On the night, Mahoney went 5-5 with 5 RBI’s and Miller went the distance on the mound striking out five and giving up one earned run.

The Panthers will have a first round bye in the Dulles District Tournament which starts on Friday.