Baseball loses to top-ranked Poolesville

BLAZER STADIUM, April 13--

Another game can be added to the list of the varsity baseball team's frustrating losses along with their tough, 12-inning loss to Sherwood on Thursday afternoon. The Blazers (4-3) met their match as they played Poolesville (8-0) and lost 4-3.

Senior Patrick Washington pitched into the sixth inning and allowed three earned runs, all three during the sixth. "It was definitely the best game of the season for Patrick and the best individual pitching performance of the season," junior captain Neil Gahart said. Head Coach Eric Zolkiewicz agreed that Washington pitched very well this game. "Patrick played a heck of a game," he said.

Though the Falcons scored a run in the top of the second inning off an error and a misplayed fly ball, the Blazers quickly redeemed themselves scoring two runs in the bottom of the second inning. Sophomore Max Salzman hit a double sending junior Mikey Gerbasi and senior Adam Lott home.

Both pitchers breezed through innings three through five as neither team was able to get anything going offensively. Going into the sixth inning the score remained 2-1.

In the sixth inning the Falcons took advantage of sloppy play by the Blazers. After a couple of walks and a fielding error, the Blazers brought in senior captain Lowell Ensel to finish the inning. Ensel walked in a run in his first batter faced but then settled down and got the Blazers out of the inning down 4-2. "We ran out of gas during the sixth inning so they got a couple of runs," Gahart said.

The Blazers started rallying in the bottom of the sixth as Gahart hit a one out RBI double to bring the score to 4-3. Gerbasi followed with a dropped third strike, which moved Gahart over to third. With two outs and the tying run on third Lott drew a walk, bringing up junior Kyle Desiderio who hit a ground ball in between first and second. The first baseman knocked down the ball and as he sprinted back to the base Desiderio dove into the bag at the same time. Much to the dismay of the Blazer fans, the first base umpire called him out. An irate Zolkiewicz appealed to the home plate umpire but was denied and the inning was over.

Junior David Pilsk came in and shut down the Falcons in the seventh. The bottom of the inning was intense as the Blazers hoped to tie up the game, but only one of four batters reached base as the game ended.

Gahart remarked that one of the Blazers' weak spots was hitting. "Our hitting was good at times but a few times their pitcher controlled the tempo," he said. Zolkiewicz feels that the team made more errors on defense. "Defensively we made some mistakes," he said.

Though the Blazers did make a few mistakes, they did not let them affect how their attitude. "They made a couple of errors, [but] we didn't let them evolve – we picked our heads up and made the next play," Zolkiewicz said.

Though it was a frustrating loss, everyone is still happy with how they played. "I am really proud of how they're playing now; they're really close to doing good things," Zolkiewicz said.

The Blazers play their next home game April 16 at 7 p.m.

Editor's Note: Mikey Gerbasi is a staff writer on Silver Chips Online