HANOVER, Md. — The Catholic baseball team went into Saturday's doubleheader against Wilkes trying to continue a strong start in Landmark play. The Cardinals saw two early leads slip away and dropped both games to the Colonials to fall to 12-10 on the season.
GAME ONE- Wilkes 10, Catholic 9 (11 inn.)
The Cardinals got out to an early advantage in game one in the bottom of the first started off by an RBI base knock down the left field line from
Dante Pozzi to bring in
Steve Thomas.
Matthew Fisher was also first pitch hunting a few batters later with two outs, lashing a single back up the box to bring
Mitchel Johnson home. In the bottom of the second,
Jack Bateman launched a solo homer into center field for his third of the season to make it a 3-1 lead for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals opened up a more comfortable lead in the bottom of the fourth, started off by Thomas who drove in Bateman on an RBI single into right field. A failed pickoff attempt from the Colonels allowed a run to score and Pozzi recorded his second RBI base-hit of the game to plate
Sammy Burman to give Catholic a 6-2 lead.
Catholic took a 7-3 lead into the eighth inning and the rally started for Wilkes, first scoring two runs on a single up the middle from Andres Cruz to cut the deficit down to two. That momentum carried into the ninth inning and two singles to start the inning brought the go-ahead run to the plate. Luke Spencer made the Cardinals pay with a three-run homer into right field to storm ahead 8-7. The Cardinals were able to find the tying-run in the bottom of the ninth as
Zach Burton poked a single back up the middle to bring in
Mark Villanueva and knot the game up at eight.
After a scoreless 10th inning, Wilkes grabbed a chance to capture the game once again with two runs scoring on singles in the top of the 11th to go ahead, 10-8.
Joe Haines gave Catholic a glimmer of hope in the bottom of the inning as he made the first hit of his career a memorable one with a solo homer into right field. Back-to-back hit by pitches put the winning run on for the Cardinals but they bounced into a double play and had a ground out to second base to put an end to the rally and give the Colonels a 10-9 win.
GAME TWO- Wilkes 5, Catholic 3
The Cardinals once again took an early lead in the bottom of the first inning when Johnson unloaded his conference-leading eighth home run of the season to left field to score Thomas as well and make it a 2-0 game. After a few quiet innings for both offenses, Burman added to the home run total with a shot over the wall in right field to make it a 3-0 lead.
Wilkes was unable to get to
Cody Bosak during his start and as he posted 6.1 one-run innings on the mound while striking out six. Once Bosak exited in the seventh inning, the Colonels found a spark on offense to bring in four runs to take their first lead of the game, 4-3. All with two outs, three singles and two hit by pitches allowed the four run spurt to happen.
The Colonels tacked on an insurance run in the top of the eighth inning after Nathan Loch reached on a lead-off walk. Spencer came up with an RBI double down the left field line for his fourth hit of the game to make it 5-3.
Zachary Lloyd, despite the early homers, stayed in the game and continued to keep the Catholic lineup off-balance, tossing a complete-game while only allowing six hits to lead Wilkes to its second win of the day. He shut the Cardinals out over the last four innings of the game while also not allowing a hit over that stretch.
The Cardinals will try to capture the final game of the series tomorrow, March 30 against Wilkes. First pitch is set for 12 pm at Joe Cannon Stadium.
