Baseball Round-up May 13: Broad Run Works 10 for Win Over Freedom; Briar Woods, Potomac Falls, Stone Bridge All Win

(May 14, 2010) - With less than a week to go in the regular season the Dulles District title is already wrapped up by Potomac Falls High School but other teams are jockeying for playoff position and Thursday night second place Broad Run needed 10 innings to beat Freedom, 2-1, and maintain its two-game advantage over Briar Woods in the loss column.

The Spartans (8-2 in district, 13-4) meet the Falcons (7-4, 8-9) tonight in "downtown Brambleton" with Briar Woods needing a win and then a Broad Run loss to Loudoun County next Tuesday to force a tie and coin flip for the tournament's second seed.

Briar Woods took care of Park View (3-7, 5-11) Thursday, 4-3. Potomac Falls (10-0, 16-2) beat Heritage, 4-3, in non-district play. Pride fall to 7-9 overall.

In AAA Liberty District play, Stone Bridge shut out Marshall, 6-0. The Bulldogs (9-4, 14-5) host regular-season district champion McLean (13-0, 17-2) tonight to finish the regular season with Senior Night and a special ceremony to retire the jersey of late assistant coach James Timbers, who passed away prior to the start of the season after a fight with cancer.

The Skinny for May 13
Broad Run 2, Freedom 1 (10)
The Skinny: Broad Run junior Taylor Clarke and Freedom sophomore Andrew Lamont kept the hitters for both team off-balanced but Clarke appeared headed for a 1-0 no-hit victory until Eagle junior Matt Malacane hit a home run in the seventh inning.

While Clarke gave way to senior Shane Vlasic in the ninth inning, Lamont kept on throwing and in the 10th inning, Broad Run juniors Ryan Johnston and Zach Rawson hit back-to-back doubles with no outs to give the Spartans the 2-1 walkoff win.

Clarke ended up with a two-hitter over eight innings with seven strikeouts and just one walk while Vlasic picked up the win to improve to 5-1 on the season by working two innings off no-hit relief with three strikeouts.

The other Freedom hit, by Luke McDonnell, also came in the top of the 7th. Defensively, Freedom made a number of great plays including a catch against the left field fence by Joey Plesce and a diving grab of a ball hit up the middle by shortstop Brad Baker, that he then flipped to Anthony Perez at second for a critical forceout.

Offensively, the Spartans couldn't get much going throughout the evening against Lamont. Broad Run had 6 hits on the night including three doubles. Junior Nick Richardson had two hits and one walk on the night to lead the team.

Briar Woods 7, Park View 2
The Skinny: No report provided

Stone Bridge 6, Marshall 0
The Skinny: The Marshall Statesmen traveled to Ashburn Thursday night, after rainouts Tuesday and Wednesday, to finish their season series with the Bulldogs. The weather was cold and damp, but the game proved exciting as Steve Putnick took the mound for Stone Bridge.

After allowing a single to center to the first Statesmen batter, he got into a groove over the next seven innings, not allowing another hit for the rest of the game, cruising to a 1-hit shut out for his third complete game of the season. Only one Marshall base runner made it to second base during the game.

The game was scoreless for the first two innings. Stone Bridge got the scoring going in the bottom of the third when Josh Kuzbel doubled to left. T Y Lighton singled to right-center, moving Kuzbel to third. Spenser Rositano singled to center scoring Kuzbel and Lighton. Spencer Brookbank came to the plate and singled to left, moving Rositano to third on the left fielder error, eventually scoring on a errant throw, ending the inning with the Bulldogs up 3-0.

Stone Bridge scored another run in the fourth inning when Kuzbel walked and Lighton doubled to left scoring Kuzbel. They added two more in the fifth, with a towering homer to left field by Dillon Berger, scoring Sid Harvey who was pinch running for JJ White, who was on base after a fielder’s choice.

Putnick was ahead in the count all night. and ended the game with six strikeouts, on eighty nine pitches for the night. Lighton and Berger had two hits each; leading the eight hit Bulldog attack, with Berger and Rositano each having two RBI’s.

Stone Bridge plays McLean Friday night to conclude the regular season. It is Senior Night, and Stone Bridge will retire former assistant coach James Timber’s number 12. The ceremony for Timbers, who passed away prior to the season after a battle with cancer, begins at 5:45 pm.

Potomac Falls 4, Heritage 3
The Skinny: In a non-District game, the Panthers enacted a little revenge on Heritage for an earlier loss this season by the Pride with a 4-3 victory on Senior Night at Panther Park. The Panthers were led by Ryan Mahoney who pitched 5.1 strong innings giving up no runs on four hits and a solo home run by Sam Bass.

The Panthers got on the board early when Ben Sweger lead off with a double off the fence in left. He scored on Thomas Rea’s double down the left field line. Mahoney then hit a deep drive to center that was caught by Nick Clayton and as Rea tagged up, the throw sailed wide into the dugout to score Rea. However, the run was disallowed when Heritage appealed that Rea left too soon at second and he was called out.

In the second, Michael Lascomb led off with a double to right and was knocked in by Taylor Jernigan’s single to right. Sam Bass then stepped to the plate in the third and delivered Tyler Dietrich’s first offering over the left field fence for his second home run of the season giving the Panthers a 3-0 lead.

Meanwhile, Mahoney was cruising through the game. In the fifth, after retiring the first batter, Mahoney was replaced by Jackson Rogers. Rogers struck out Dietrich and then gave up a single to Shane Carrera before walking Marco Verdi. With two runners on and two outs, Tyler McCullock came thru and delivered a double to center to score both runners. Mitchell Bowers then followed with an RBI single up the middle and the score was tied at 3. Rogers then struck out Daniel Gershon to end the inning.

The Panthers then manufactured a run in the bottom half of the inning on singles by Lascomb and Rogers. Colin Deely walked to load the bases before Tyler Caldwell hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Lascomb and give the Panthers the run they needed.

Steven Fisher entered the game in the seventh and recorded three strikeouts for the save. The Panthers will face Loudoun County Friday and wrap up their season at Freedom on Tuesday.