For baseball, no clutch hitting, no win

MAY 12, BLAZER FIELD-

It was somewhat ironic that halfway through Jesse Mueller's at-bat, the loudspeakers from the adjacent lacrosse field began to blare Nelly's "Heart of a Champion." Ironic because, during the course of the five minute long song, Mueller flew out to end the first inning with the bases loaded, Richard Montgomery's Mason Dunham ran into his own bunt, and Mueller missed a tough grounder at third base.

Neither team showed the heart that it will take to be crowned Maryland Division 4 State Champions. But apparently Blair lacked it just a little bit more. They stranded an astonishing 12 base runners, including five in scoring position, and were stunned at home by the Richard Montgomery Rockets, 2-1 to end their season in heartbreaking fashion.

The Blazers' defeat was the first at home in seven games, and the win was RM's first on the road since they beat Rockville on March 30^th. The Rockets (5-14) had lost nine in a row before beating Kennedy on Monday night, their last two losses being 10-0 shutouts. Still, they got just one more clutch hit than the Blazers did.

The Rockets only had four hits tonight, but they were able to play small ball to win. With the game tied 1-1 in the top of the sixth inning with no outs, Blair reliever Avi Wolfman-Arent walked RM's Daniel Froehlich. After Wolfman-Arent was replaced by MacDonald in favor of Gabe Sartor, Froehlich stole second and third base easily.

After Sartor struck out Aric Linkins, Nicholas Khan stepped to the plate. Khan hit Sartor's 1-2 fastball past a drawn in middle infield for the game winning single.

Blair was not able to respond to Linkins, who threw a complete game winner on the mound for the Rockets. Blair's Sam Morris led the game off with a walk, and came around to score off an Adam Kopp single. That was the only run the Blazers (9-12) got all night.

Manager John MacDonald said the game was emblematic of the problems that plagued the team all season. "We've been a bad team this year hitting with runners in scoring position. We just can't seem to get a clutch hit. It's happened so much; I just don't know why."

Bench coach David Douglass concurred. "When you leave a lot of guys on as we did tonight," he said, "you're not going to win. Plain and simple."

In addition to leaving the bases loaded in the first, Blair left two runners on in the second, one on in the third, and one in the fifth. It was the Blazers' final two offensive innings that likely left the most bitter taste in the mouths of the players.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Lee Shields singled and stole second base with one out. But then Sartor and Morris both struck out to end that threat.

In the seventh and final inning of the season, Blair's Zach Hall led off with a bloop single that barely got over the head of third baseman Jeremy Oziel. Tommy Dugan then hit a sharp line drive to put two runners on with no outs. But then Wolfman-Arent lined out, Kopp grounded out, and after a hard fought at-bat, Alec Burns popped out to Holmes at shortstop to end the game and the 2006 season.

MacDonald was upset about how Blair couldn't convert a golden opportunity in the final inning. "We've got two on, nobody out at we screw it up. It's horrible."

The game was Blair's fifth one-run game in a row, a span which they went 2-3 in. Douglass said that "the benefit of these close games shows how one play can turn a game."

Perhaps that one play was Blair's biggest mistake. RM's first run was scored when Addy Holmes reached on a single in the third inning, then scored when Morris bobbled a grounder at shortstop, then threw wide of first base. Holmes went from first all the way home to score over the course of the play.

But there were so many other close calls for both teams. The Rockets had a runner on third in borth the fourth and fifth innings but didn't score either time. In the fourth, Robert Riker snared Oziel's hard ground ball at second base and threw to first to end the frame unharmed. In the fifth, starter Zach Hall got two pop-outs and a groundout after allowing runners to reach first and second base with nobody out.

MacDonald said that Hall, Kopp and Burns are the core of the small number of returning starters. "They carried us well," he said. But Wolfman-Arent, Shields, Dugan, Morris and Mueller are all graduating seniors.

Even though Blair did have a lot of turnover following last season's departures of Cody Simpson and Mike Sindall among others, MacDonald didn't take any comfort in the fact that the Blazers almost finished with a .500 record. "This team should have been way over that number," he said. "We just never got all three components; hitting, pitching and fielding together."

"One day," he noted, "we would hit and pitch, but not field. Other days, like today, we fielded and pitched well but couldn't hit. It's really maddening."

Douglass agreed that the inconsistency and inability to put all three parts together held them back greatly. "For us to be a great team, or even a good one, we had to have all three parts working together. And because they didn't we could only hope to do the best with what was left."

Which was tantalizingly close to being enough to win. But MacDonald said that the loss was part of a season that he viewed through anything but rose colored glasses. "I don't know how you can spin this season in a positive way," he said.

"To lose as many close games as we did," MacDonald continued. "is unbelievable. I take no moral victories from this season. Every close loss, especially tonight," he said, his voice trailing off.

MacDonald paused, and then summed up his view of a season full of close losses, including the one that ended it.

"This was a recurring nightmare."