McDonough baseball blanked by Northern
Patriots southpaw Lee Sang throws six shutout innings for win
In a game that lasted only 90 minutes, the Northern High School baseball team blanked visiting McDonough High School 3-0 at Dunkirk District Park on a day when the Patriots had one good inning of offense and the Rams ran themselves out of their best scoring chance.
Northern sophomore southpaw starting pitcher Marcus Lee Sang held McDonough scoreless through six innings and reliever Justin Hitt tossed a perfect seventh to earn the save in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference crossover contest. McDonough sophomore starter Liam Golden gave the Rams five solid innings, yielding runs in only one of them en route to a tough loss.
“Marcus did a great job getting ahead of the hitters with his fastball and then getting them out with his change-up,” Northern coach Bobby Gibbons said of Lee Sang, who transferred from DeMatha High School prior to the start of the 2016-17 school year. “He really had good command of his fastball and his change-up. We came up with the big hits when we needed them and we made the plays on defense when we needed to make them.”
Northern (8-2) had one hit in each of the first two innings, but it was finally able to get to Golden in a pivotal third. With two on and one out, Lee Sang helped his own cause by delivering a single up the middle that scored Bryce Leslie with the first run, then Kyle Kingsbury followed with a two-run double in the gap in right-center field that plated Brian Freschi and Lee Sang for a 3-0 lead.
“I was just looking for a good pitch to drive and I was able to drive one into the gap,” Kingsbury said. “I thought their right fielder [Seth Morrison] did a good job of getting over and cutting it off. Marcus did a good job for us out there attacking the hitters and we played good defense behind him. When we had two runners on, I just wanted to come through for my team somehow.”
While Northern was able to take advantage of its best scoring chance of the day, McDonough (8-2) ran out of one in the top of the sixth that could have reversed the course of the contest. Peyton Myers and Sean Joseph greeted Lee Sang with consecutive singles, then Tommy Willey reached on an error by Leslie at second.
But instead of having the bases loaded and none out, Joseph overran second and headed to third, forcing Myers to head home prematurely. Myers was caught in a rundown between third and home and Joseph was tardy getting back to the bag at second and both were nailed on the play. So instead of having the bases loaded and none out when he stepped to the plate, Golden grounded out to end the inning.
“That was the ballgame right there,” McDonough head coach Mike Lydon said. “We had a sophomore [Joseph] running
the bases and he just got confused and overran the bag and that forced Peyton to keep moving. We had a chance to get back in the game with the bases loaded and none out, but instead we ran into two outs. That was pretty much the game for us right there.”
McDonough had several chances earlier in the game as well. In the top of the first, Austin Simms had a oneout single and Myers delivered a two-out single. But with runners at first and third, Joseph fanned on an 0-ball, 2-strike pitch from Lee Sang to end the threat.
McDonough had a two-out single from Ryan Barnett in the second, but Morrison grounded to short for the final out. Simms had a one-out single in the third, but Brant Butler grounded out and Myers flew out to left. Willey also reached on an error in the fourth, but Golden grounded out and Barnett fanned. Simms reached on a two-out error in the fifth, but Butler flew out to right to end that frame.
The Rams are next scheduled to play at home versus Lackey at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Northern was scheduled to play in the Arundel High School tournament on Thursday and is next slated to play Huntingtown at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at Dunkirk Park.
“I thought Liam did a good job today,” Lydon said. “He pitched well enough to win. We didn’t give him a lot of support. We had that one chance to get back into the game in the sixth and we ran ourselves out of a big inning. But give credit to Northern. Their pitcher