FREDERICK, MD. – The pitching staff brought the baseball team into a tie in the late innings before it would start to rain heavily as Blazers would pour on six runs in the eighth to take the first game of the series over Eastern 8-3 and put together their best conference start with four-straight wins at Frederick Community College on Friday afternoon.
On the Mound
Skylar Albright (Hendersonville, N.C./Hendersonville) went 6.1 innings of five-hit baseball, no earned runs while striking out four
.
Declan Musselman (Harrisburg, Pa./Central Dauphin) got the win with 2.2 innings of relief allowing only one earned run.
Inside the Batter's Box
Kamari Chisolm (Gainesville, Va./Bishop O'Connell) went 2-for-4 with a walk and scored three times.
Sean Seely (Bethpage, N.Y./Bethpage) collected three hits on the day with an RBI.
Amrit Brown (Asheville, N.C./Asheville) had a double and a pair of RBIs.
How it Happened
After a clean top half of the first, six straight pitches put Chisolm on the base paths and
AJ Haines (Arlington, Va./Bishop O'Connell) with a 2-0 count. Chisolm took second and a sac fly from Haines put the Hood baserunner on third.
Amrit Brown (Asheville, N.C./Asheville) got a job done with a sac fly lifted to left that scored the game's first run.
Rinse and repeat, Chisolm would find a way on base and Haines worked a long at-bat to serve another sacrifice this time scoring the first year for the 2-0. The Blazers wouldn't be done yet as they would juice the bases with a pair of walks and
Ty Broughton (Charles Town, W.Va./Washington) mustering up a backside single. Unfortunately, the Blazers would be retired with just one run in that inning.
Eastern battled back with two runs in the fifth and the Blazers held the damage to just that.
After Albright got to 80 pitches in the seventh, his day would be done for Musselman to take the keys with a runner on second with one out. Broughton threw a beam from behind the plate to third base and cut down the runner to leave Eastern with the bases empty with two outs. After an Eagle hit, Musselman struck out the final batter in a 3-2 count to preserve the tie.
The boys from Frederick in the downpour rallied in the bottom of the eighth with a pair of singles by
Jason Rivera (Smithsburg, Md./Saint Maria Goretti) and
Jonathan Tyndall (Felton, Del./Lake Forest).
Quade Gannon (Felton, Del./Lake Forest) then laid down a bunt right in front of home plate to cause trouble and the throw sailed into right field and two runs would score. Seely would poke a single through the infield to add another run, later Haines would hit a ball over the shoulder of the right fielder and pour on two more runs. Brown's double would polish off a big inning with a run scoring, but not to be outdone by Broughton getting himself in a rundown after his single to score Brown from third.
Notes
Hood improves to 9-9, a 4-0 start to conference play.
Eastern falls to 11-6, now 1-3 in conference play thus far.
Up Next
The squad will continue the series against the Eagles tomorrow with a doubleheader on their turf with first pitch for noon in St. Davids.
