Coming up short
Hughesville loses to St. Mary’s in Legion baseball
Being behind two runs in the top of the second inning didn’t scare St. Mary’s Legion Post 255 in Tuesday night’s American Legion baseball game against Hughesville Post 238.
With perfect weather at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the St. Mary’s team battled back from the deficit to lead 4-3 in the same inning en route to a 7-3 victory over Hughesville.
“Usually I play middle infield, but due to lineup changes today I played first and pitched a little bit,” said St. Mary’s pitcher Matt Robinson from Leonardtown High School, who pitched three innings and struck out two without giving up any runs.
Robinson added: “This is my first year playing Legion, so I don’t know how it’s been in the past. It’s not as competitive as high school, but it’s still pretty competitive and gets you a lot of looks. It felt good to be out there on the mound because I didn’t really pitch in high school but I was feeling pretty good. I hope to achieve first seed because we are playing for first seed in the playoffs.”
Steve Zumpano, the new head coach for St. Mary’s making the transition from coaching the junior team last year, was proud of his team’s performance as he
“Well we started off with a run in the top of the first, but got a couple of errors,” Zumpano said. “In the second inning, we let them back in it. The field
was a little hard, you know those were plays that the guys will tell you they should have made. We battled and Blake Withrow gave us a nice outing for four and Matt Robinson came in and closed it out for us. Our defense tightened up towards the end.”
He added: “Hughesville is a fairly new team, but they are scrappy and put the ball in play. They put us in a position to make plays at the end of the game.”
St. Mary’s was first on the board in the bottom of the first as Gavin Tippett tripled and quickly scored on Cameron Clarke’s triple.
Down 1-0, Hughesville was helped out by St. Mary’s miscues to score three runs in the second.
Tommy Brill reached on an error, advanced on a fielder’s choice and came home on a
wild pitch to tie the game at 1. Austin Delawder also reached on an error and rounded the bases on Austin Dalton’s RBI double, putting Hughesville ahead 2-1.
Hughesville extended its lead as Dalton moved to third base when Evan Sheldon and came home as Kasey Wharton also reached on an error, making it 3-1. That would turn out to be the last run Hughesville would score in the game. St. Mary’s answered with three runs in its half of the second.
Derek Zumpano bunted to first and went to second as Hughesville pitcher John Lusk overthrew first base on a pick-off attempt. Lusk then walked Ryan Clarke.
Zumpano scored on Chase Ogden’s RBI single and Robinson smacked a two-RBI single, bringing home Ryan Clarke and Ogden, to turn the 3-1 St. Mary’s deficit into a 4-3 lead.
“Well my first at-bat didn’t really go too well,” Robinson said. “It was more just like getting back into it because the high school season ended a while ago. The second atbat I kind of got the hang of it and got a hit. And then my next at-bat after that I got another hit and was feeling it. Pitching, I was throwing pretty well, getting it by them and mixing it up a lot. So they were kind of off-balance.”
St. Mary’s added another run in the bottom of the third when Cameron Clarke walked, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch. Zumpano was hit by a pitch and John Callaghan hit into a fielder’s choice that scored Cameron Clarke to make the score 5-3.
“Offensively, I think we did pretty good,” said Lusk, who threw five innings for Hughesville. “I think we were putting the bat on the ball, it just wasn’t going where we wanted it to. Defensively, I think we were making some mental errors, like dropping fly balls. I was a little bit tired at the end, but I felt like I could finish the inning.”
St. Mary’s added another run in the the fourth. Ogden singled through the hole in center field, advanced to second on an error, got to third on a wild pitch and came home on Robinson’s sacrifice fly, making it 6-3.
St. Mary’s final run of the game came in the fifth when Cameron Clarke hit his second triple of the game and came home to score when Brandon Mills grounded into a fielder’s choice, making it a 7-3 game.
“We played solid, it was just a few mental mistakes that we have been working on that came back and bit us again,” Hughesville head coach Christopher Gace said. “If you take all those errors out, it was probably a 3-3 game. I felt like we swung the bat and pitched really well. It was just a few mistakes that cost us the game.”
Hughesville is slated to play Dundalk Post 38 at 11 a.m. Saturday at Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf.
St. Mary’s is scheduled to play Severn Post 276 at 10 a.m. Saturday at Chancellor’s Run Regional Park in Great Mills.