After falling to the South County Stallions twice in the regular season, and again in the District Championship game, the Lake Braddock Bruins baseball team was more than ready for vengeance on Friday night as they squared off with their district nemesis before a large crowd for the Northern Region Championships on a stunning late spring night in Vienna.
Up 4-2, in the fourth inning, sophomore southpaw Thomas Rogers entered the game in a tough spot, with the bases loaded and no one out. He struck out the first batter he faced on three pitches, and had the Stallions’ best hitter, Luke Bondurant, down, 0-2. It appeared as though the rally was about to fizzle, but Bondurant crushed the next pitch over the wall in center field for a grand slam, that put the Stallions up 6-4. Once given the lead, the Stallions’ starting pitcher, Evan Beal slammed the door shut, as South County won the game 9-5, sealing its first ever Northern Region Championship.
“It (the home run) didn’t have to be the turning point, we made it that way,” said Bruins’ head coach Jody Rutherford after the game. “We didn’t handle it very well, they’ve been down plenty of times this year and you never see their level change. The most disappointing thing for me tonight, was how everyone’s faces just dropped, the way they handled themselves on the field dropped and that’s just unacceptable.”
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Lake Braddock drew first blood in the second inning as sophomore catcher Garrett Driscoll smashed an outside fastball that bounced off the top of a Midas banner in right-center field and then dunked over the fence, with a runner on board to stake his team to an early 2-0 lead.
“It felt really good,” Driscoll said after the game. “I thought it was going to be a double, but once I rounded first base, I saw it go over and I was pretty happy about that.”
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Stallions’ designated hitter Mike Egbert ripped an R.B.I. single up the middle in the bottom of the 2nd to cut the lead to 1, but in the next frame, the Bruins’ left fielder, Ryan Owens, smacked a double to left to score 2, to put the lead at 4-1.
Stallions’ senior Mike Perez, who will attend Old Dominion next year on a baseball scholarship, cut the Bruins’ lead to 4-2 in the bottom of the third with hard R.B.I. single down the left field line, and then in the 4th, the Stallions batted around, scoring six runs- four on Bondurant’s blast, and two more when Tyler Frazier, who is headed to the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on a baseball scholarship next year, hit a two run home run to right to up the lead to 8-4.
The outburst turned out to be more than enough offense for Beal, who used his repertoire of fastballs, curves and sliders to strike out 12 batters, as he went the distance to get the win. Beal’s brother, Jesse, was drafted right out of high school in 2008, and is now playing for the Frederick Keys, who are part of the Baltimore Orioles farm system. Beal has a full scholarship to play baseball at the University of South Carolina next year, but if he’s picked in next week’s M.L.B. draft, he might turn pro.
Beal held Northern Region player of the year, Kenny Towns, who will attend the University of Virginia next year on a baseball scholarship, to just one base hit in four at bats. Despite giving up the grand slam, Rogers had three hits and an R.B.I., and senior Ryan Owens had a walk, a double, and two R.B.I’s.
After the game, Coach Rutherford was visibly frustrated with his team’s performance and their attitude. He alluded to some “internal problems” on the team but wouldn’t elaborate on the specifics.
“To be in a 6-4 game, we had a regional player of the year, an All-Met player of the year, with two guys on, it would have been a 6-5 game but the level dropped with everybody, and I’m just really disappointed in my team,” he said. “To be in a game like this and to totally lose composure, I’m very disappointed. They’re a great team but to do what we did was unacceptable."
But the season isn’t over, and the Bruins will have a chance to get back in the win column on Tuesday night as they’ll play on the road against Great Bridge in the first round of the State Championships.
“We want to face these guys again, because today we beat ourselves, but we still think we can beat them,” Driscoll said.
“We definitely want one more shot at them."
