Surviving at the end
Sixth-inning homer vaults La Plata baseball over Rams
The top two baseball teams in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division took the field Friday afternoon as La Plata hosted McDonough.
With the game tied at 4 in the bottom of the sixth inning, La Plata junior Jake Hanks hit a two-out, three-run home run off of Rams pitcher Kendrick Musser to give the Warriors a 7-4 lead.
With Hanks on the mound in the top of the seventh, McDonough fueled a comeback with a leadoff solo homer from David Larson and a twoout RBI single from Damien Price.
However, McDonough’s Jonathan Fisher flied out to junior left fielder Brett Pilkerton for the third out to end the game.
“That a huge win for us,” La Plata head coach John Childers said. “McDonough is a really good team, to have them 4-0 and for them to bounce back and put four runs to tie it up, a lot of teams would have given up. But they fought hard, our guys just found a way to win. You can’t write a story better than that, Jake hit a big homer and then facing the top of the order on the mound, but he found a way to get the outs for us. He a tough kid.”
Hanks, who finished with two hits and three RBIs, got the win for La Plata. He allowed two runs over the sixth and seventh innings, walked one and surrendered three hits.
“We battled and we’ve been fighting hard in every game,” Hanks said. “It was exciting to hit a home run today, but the guys backed me up the whole game.”
Senior Scott Logue went the first five innings in a no-decision for La Plata with nine strikeouts.
“McDonough is our toughest team in our division. We knew it was going to be a battle,” Logue said. “We just fought harder and got the win. No matter how tough it got we made the plays that we needed.”
Musser took the loss for the Rams. He lasted just 2 2/3 innings, walked two, struck out six and allowed four runs.
La Plata, which had eight hits, jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third on a RBI singles from seniors Tyler Stockwell and Zach Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons also came to home plate on a double steal.
The Warriors tacked on another run in the fourth to go up 4-0 on a one-out RBI double from senior Taylor Cook.
In the top of the fifth, McDonough scored four unanswered runs to knot the game at 4 on an RBI single from Peyton Myers and a three-run