Post 295 in Legion playoff driver's seat

Friday, July 18, 2008

Post 295 in Legion playoff driver's seat

by James Peters | Staff Writer

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With Thursday's 3-2 win over second-seeded Damascus Post 171, top seed Gaithersburg Post 295 moved a step closer to its fifth Montgomery County American Legion baseball tournament title in the past six years and a ticket to next weekend's state tournament in Frederick.

‘‘We've got it now,” said Gaithersburg third baseman Kyle Ehret, who delivered Thursday's win with a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the seventh at Quince Orchard High School. ‘‘We're going to win this. It's momentum. We're not going to stop now. We have the pitching and we showed we have the hitting.”

Post 295 (32-3) will face a rematch against either Post 171 or fourth-seeded Cissel Saxon Post 41 in Sunday's championship round at Damascus Regional Park, where it only has to win one game, but would have to be beaten twice. Gaithersburg has lost just once in 28 outings against county opponents this summer, and has already beaten both potential finals opponents in the tournament this week.

Damascus (18-11) and Cissel Saxon (14-16) will have to use up more pitching during Saturday's elimination game, also at Damascus Regional Park at noon. Post 295 will enter Sunday with a pair of rested and undefeated hurlers in Dominick Vattuone (6-0, 0.35 ERA) and Mike Loeb (7-0, 2.70 ERA). Vattuone threw one inning of relief during Tuesday's 10-0 win against Cissel Saxon. Loeb has yet to see the mound in the tournament.

Thursday, Damascus pitcher Kyle Blackwell held a Post 295 lineup that produced a .364 batting average in the regular season to two runs in his first six innings. Gaithersburg notched an unearned run in the first and an earned run in the fourth on a single to center field by Nick Loftus.

Blackwell, who pitches for the University of Maryland, started the seventh, yielding a double by Post 295 catcher Gary Schneider to start the inning. Schneider said he took a high fastball into the gap in right-center. Then with Spencer Pearman at the plate, Blackwell spun to pick off Schneider at second base. Blackwell's throw went into center field, allowing Schneider to reach third base.

‘‘I knew they would try to pick me off,” Schneider said. ‘‘I wanted to do anything to get to third base. I was happy when he threw it over my head.”

Blackwell intentionally walked the next two batters to load the bases and was removed for Kyle Schindel, a key pitcher in Sherwood High's run to the state title. Schindel fell behind two balls and one strike before Ehret lifted a ball over A.J. Bowman's head in right field for the win.

‘‘It was a fastball,” Ehret said. ‘‘It was high and outside. I just went with the pitch. I figured it would be a tag up [instead of a single].”

Damascus, swept in three games by Post 295 this summer, had rallied to tie the score twice, on run-scoring groundouts by Mark Smith in the third and Tommy Gilchrist in the sixth. After the second run, Post 295 manager Rick Price pulled starter Charlie Cononie (Towson University) for left-hander Mike Ryan (3-1), who retired three of the four batters he faced.

‘‘Mike Ryan was huge,” Price said. ‘‘He absolutely saved the ballgame for us. He befuddled them. Our plan was for Cononie to go seven innings. We made things up from there but we wanted for sure for Ryan to face a left-hander [a strikeout of Alejandro Colon-Acevedo].”

Post 295 now waits on the winner between Damascus and Cissel Saxon, which remained alive with a 7-2 victory against third-seeded Wheaton Post 268 (15-15) Thursday. Post 171 won two of three games against Post 41 this season.