Oakland Mills High School | Archive | May, 2009

By Andy States
SMAC Content Manager

McDonough’s Tyler Croson stepped to the plate in the bottom of the third with the chance to bust his team’s game wide open.

The bases were loaded and the Rams were already ahead by three with one out in the bottom of the third of Friday afternoon’s 2A South first-round playoff game between McDonough and the visiting Oakland Mills Scorpions. Croson emptied the bases, at least for a brief time, with a grand slam over the left-field fence.

The homer was mistakenly later ruled a ground-rule double, but as it turned out it did not matter. The Rams scored seven runs in the bottom of the third, received a combined no-hitter from Donnie Sturgill and Justin Gray and cruised to a 10-0, five-inning victory.

“I was hoping to get some runs in,” Croson said of his third-inning at-bat. “I thought it went over, but I still scored. We still got the runs in. At least we got the win. That’s all I’m really worried about.”

McDonough (9-8), which was seeded fifth for the regional playoffs, had not played in a solid week entering Friday’s game. But after a sluggish start the Rams opened it up, pounding out seven runs on six hits and three errors in the bottom of the third.

Dwight Blaine drove in another run in the fourth to increase the lead to 8-0. Then with two outs in the fifth, successive RBI singles off the bats of Nick Forbes and Sturgill brought the game to an early end.

On the mound, Sturgill and Gray did not allow a hit over the game’s five innings. Sturgill worked the first three, hit two batters, walked one and struck out three. Gray, who also struck out three, came on to pitch two perfect innings to close it out.

“Hopefully this will be the building of something going forward,” McDonough coach Mike Lydon said.

Oakland Mills (1-19), a sophomore-heavy squad that was seeded 12th in the region, was a team that Coach Rod Clifford knew was going to ‘take its lumps’ this year. It was not all that different for McDonough, which struggled through much of the season before finding its groove late.

“When we started the year the biggest thing was they had no baseball knowledge,” Lydon said. “My goals were, one, to go out and have fun. Two, we’re going to get better as every game goes and learn the game of baseball.”

Similar to the start of Friday’s game, early sluggishness led to success as the Rams finished the season on a four-game win streak. Over McDonough’s final four games, the team outscored its opponents 39-14 and capped its regular season with an 8-4 win over county rival and defending 3A state champ La Plata on May 1.

“Last year it was like ‘Sandlot’ compared to this year,” Gray said. “This year we’re doing really, really well.”

And most importantly, the team is peaking at the end of the season. With the luxury of the run-rule win on Friday, the Rams were able to lighten ace Sturgill’s workload to just three innings and will have all of the team’s pitchers available. On Monday, McDonough will host Calvert (12-5), which defeated Marriotts Ridge (12-6) 4-3 on Friday in a marquee first-round matchup. McDonough upset Calvert early in the season, while Calvert won the teams’ second meeting. 

A spot in the 2A South semfinals will be on the line in Monday’s meeting. And given their five-game win streak and the way they have played down the stretch, the Rams feel confident entering the matchup.

“We knew we couldn’t win SMAC. We knew we were going to be terrible at the beginning,” Lydon said, “but we’re peaking. It doesn’t matter what you do at the beginning. It’s how you are at the end.”

McDonough 10, Oakland Mills 0
O    0 0 0  0 0 – 0 0 4
M    0 0 7  1 2 – 10 11 1
WP: Sturgill, LP Yarn
2B — Sturgill 2 (M), Croson (M)

astates@digitalsports.com

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