The Northern Patriots baseball team gave a performance reminiscent of previous seasons, using pitching and defense to hand the previously undefeated Huntingtown Hurricanes their first loss in a 9-3 victory Wednesday, April 25. Northern’s Timmy Hull struck out six and allowed two runs over six innings pitched.
After consecutive road losses in which they gave up a total of 24 runs, Northern has since rebounded by going back to the tactics that won them three of the past four Southern Maryland Athletic Conference (SMAC) championships.
“Obviously the premise of our program has always been based on our defense and our pitching. If we hit the ball it’s a bonus,” said Northern head coach Carl Smith. “We’ve scored a lot of runs the past couple games but the difference is when [we don’t] make any errors and the pitching [is] good. If we do the simple things—keep runners off base and make the simple plays—we’ll be tough.”
It was Huntingtown who struggled to make the simple plays in this game, as errors plagued the Hurricanes all afternoon. The defensive lapses were largely atypical for a team that had been the victor in 14 straight contests. All told, five errors by the Hurricanes prolonged innings and gave Northern plenty of chances to manufacture runs.
“We had a tough day defensively; infielders and outfielders didn’t make plays,” said Huntingtown head coach Guy Smith. “We’ve been playing tremendous defense all year—today it just snowballed. That’s the game of baseball.”
“Obviously any time a team gives you base-runners it works to your advantage,” Carl Smith said. “You’re thankful it comes your way but they’re a better team than that—they know they’re a better team than that. They’re 14-1, first in SMAC and they’re still the best in SMAC. We’re happy it worked out for us today.”
The Patriots blew open a tightly contested game in the bottom of the fifth, capitalizing on an off day for Huntingtown’s pitchers and defense. With men on the corners for Northern and no outs, Nick Soloducha roped a hit past shortstop to bring Jordan Shafer home from third. Another hit by Pat Morrow loaded the bases with Hull up to bat. In a reoccurring theme for Huntingtown’s defense, another infield error by the Hurricanes allowed Nick Sydnor to score off Hull’s soft grounder. Northern eventually ended up batting through the entire order and ran their lead up to a sizable 9-0 headed into the sixth.
Instead of watching their offensive production go to waste due to shoddy defense and inconsistent pitching as in previous losses, the Patriots made every run count thanks to an impressive outing by Hull.
“Timmy [Hull] is our number one pitcher—it’s kind of taken him awhile to get back in the groove [but] he pitched like he’s capable of today,” said Carl Smith. “He was pretty sharp. If he can throw that well for the rest of the year we’ll be tough to beat.”
“I felt great starting off,” Hull stated. “Huntingtown is a great hitting team and I think I kept them off balance pretty well today. Once we started scoring runs I just knew that if I threw strikes my defense was going to help me out.”
“We didn’t hit the ball like we should have,” said Guy Smith. “He was throwing fastballs by us a little bit and we didn’t have our hands or heads ready. He was just better than we were today.”
Northern got a bit of a scare in the bottom of the fourth when Hull was struck on the side of the helmet by a Cory Page pitch. After shaking off the impact, Hull calmly took his base and seemed no worse from the incident. Those assumptions were confirmed as retired the first three Hurricane batters he faced in the next inning, two via strikeout.
“I just came back and got my focus back,” Hull said. “It was a scary moment though.”
While the pitching staff may not be as deep or talented as years past, the Patriots have had no trouble amassing plenty of runs in an attempt to compensate. Surpassing their quota against Huntingtown, Northern has averaged a healthy eight scores per game for the season and already scored more runs than they did all of last year.
“It’s been a tale of two teams. When we play like we’re capable of with this group we’ve been very impressive. When we haven’t, we’ve looked…not too well.”
It’s been those uncharacteristic losses that find Northern in a foreign spot headed into the last stretch of games before regionals; instead of solidifying their lead at the top of the standings, they are one of several teams fighting for position in SMAC’s crowded middle tier. Coach and player alike hope that routing a quality opponent such as Huntingtown is a sign of a team that’s improving at just the right time.
“We hoped we had a shot at SMAC, but realistically we knew we probably didn’t have as much depth as we did in the past at the pitching position,” Carl Smith stated. “We’ve kind of structured things differently to hopefully play well at the right time.
“We had everybody back [from injuries] for the first time in four games today, so that was a bonus. Hopefully we’ll get a good situation in the playoffs, get some favorable bounces and things will go our way.”
“It feels good to get back to our style and beat a quality team like Huntingtown,” Hull added. “Maybe we can make a run here towards playoffs [and] get a good spot. Anything can happen; just take it in stride. One game at a time.”
After seeing more than his share of promising regular seasons fall short in the playoffs, Northern’s Smith knows better than most how any team can get hot during regionals. This year however, he’s hoping his own squad will be one of those ‘dark-horse’ teams that have victimized Northern in the past.
“I’ve been on the other end of it many times and anything can happen, there’s no doubt about it,” Carl Smith said. “We’re always confident; you always have to be positive. Hope you get a good draw, bottom line. You’ve just got to hope that maybe one year it’s your turn.”
At 14-1 and leading the standings in SMAC, it’s not exactly time to go back to the drawing board for Huntingtown. With the goal of perfection ending at Northern, the challenge for the Hurricanes will be to learn from their first loss of 2007.
“The undefeated season is gone; we don’t have any hopes of that anymore,” said a disappointed Guy Smith. “We need to learn that once a couple mistakes happen, we can’t let it snowball. Our kids fought; they came out with effort. We’re going to be fine if we have the effort and we had it today.
“To lose to a county team is never good—it hits home. All in-county games are big. The kids put a lot into [those] games. It doesn’t matter what your record is or who’s playing well. We’re five or six games better than them and they come and beat us by seven runs. The records don’t matter.”
The Calvert Independent
