Barons overpower boys' baseball 4-1

Blazer Field, April 13 —

Despite putting on what head coach John MacDonald thought was a solid performance, varsity baseball (2-5) lost to Bethesda-Chevy Chase (2-3) in a cold, rainy game. Blair committed multiple fielding errors, but was mostly set back by a commanding B-CC pitcher who kept even Blair's strongest hitters from their full potential.

Coming off of a disappointing loss to Wootton in which Blair also managed only one run, the team hoped to beat B-CC, who had been crushed 11-2 by Northwest, a team Blair lost to in a close 10-9 game. MacDonald, however, was not upset by the team's play during the two losses. "We're not playing bad baseball," he said. "We've just come up against two teams that have played good baseball."

Still, Blair struggled with their defense from the onset of the game and had a tough time pitching consistently, walking two batters in the first inning. In the second, an infield error allowed one B-CC runner to advance to second before being batted in by a hit to deep right field, scoring the first run of the game for B-CC.

Blair countered this first run in the bottom of the inning when senior Ben Hukill ripped a ball past a diving right fielder in the right-center gap and, hustling around the bases, slid into third safe. Junior Peirce Marston followed the triple with a short hit that brought Hukill home. But the game didn't stay tied up for long, and an overthrow by pitcher Sammy Denenberg to Hukill at first base in the next inning let a B-CC runner at second base to score, putting B-CC in a lead it would maintain for the rest of the game.

A combination of error-free fielding and dominant pitching on the part of B-CC continued to shut Blair batters down as the game went on. The third inning saw the first of three line drives to center field by Blair hitters that were caught in the air by B-CC outfielders, hits that would usually have gained Blair two or three bases. Despite having a group of talented hitters like junior Lucas Babinec, who entered the game with a .588, ten for 17 batting average, they were not able to overcome the in-control B-CC pitcher who pitched six innings of the game.

The Blazers continued to make fielding mistakes, and a missed throw followed by a dropped ball in right field during the fourth inning led to two final runs for B-CC. After that, Blair's defensive game slightly improved and the team achieved three consecutive outs in both the fifth and sixth innings, the second set of which were three strike outs by pitcher Babinec. Yet this was not enough to overcome the Barons, who reciprocated with three consecutive outs in the sixth and seventh innings, ending the game ahead by three.

MacDonald thought that the pitching element was strong enough to have won, had the team been able to hit better. The team's two consecutive losses have been frustrating, but MacDonald hopes to turn around their performance for the upcoming game against Springbrook. "I don't want us to get discouraged now," he said.

Boy's varsity baseball plays its next home game against Paint Branch on April 17 at 1:30 p.m.