Baseball: Huskies Shut Out Maroon, 8-0

After a rough road trip that gave the Huskies their first two losses of the season, the baseball team returned home to shut out Episcopal, 8-0.

Flint Hill slowly built up its runs, scoring four runs over four innings — including a solo home run over the center field wall from third baseman Harrison Gray. Gray has hit three home runs in four games, and is batting .315 on the season. Jared Knoll, pitcher, brought in one run in the first. The other two runs were scored on errors.

The Huskies surged ahead in the sixth, scoring the last of its eight runs. James Abrahamsen started the inning with a tough groundball to third base, beating the throw to first by a step. Then shortstop David Belt (two hits, one walk) flied out, right fielder Calvin Baxter (two hits) walked, and Zach Harker — batting for Knoll — got hit by a pitch to load the bases. Center fielder Nick Bazzarone hit a line drive double to center field, his only hit, to drive in all three runners. Later in the inning, Gray (two hits) hit a double to score Bazzarone for the game's final run.

Despite the shut out, head coach Tom Verbanic said the game was closer than the scoreboard may indicate.

"Their pitchers did a pretty good job. We kinda left too many guys on base. We just couldn't get a hit when we needed it," he said. "But we battled and we pitched well and we played good defense. Overall it was still a good baseball game."

Knoll, a senior who has signed to play baseball with Marshall University next spring, had a no-hitter after six innings until he gave up two hits in the seventh.

"Knoll is a leader for the team and he's doing a great job on the mound. All year long he's pitched very well, and he had another great outing today," Verbanic said.

In 18 innings, Knoll has a 0.39 ERA, 20 strikeouts, one walk and given up one run.

But Verbanic also noted the effort from Bhendari Moore at catcher Tuesday, whose heads up playing on uncaught third strikes helped Knoll tally seven strikeouts.

"He's playing very well defensively," Verbanic said. "When the ball was thrown in the dirt, he did a great job blocking and then throwing down to first when he had to. Just what we want him to do."

The first baserunner for Episcopal came in the fourth after a throwing error from Gray allowed catcher Pen Agnew to reach first base. But Knoll pitched third baseman Fielding Harrison into one of the game's 14 groundouts — and one of six fielded by second baseman Abrahamsen — to end the inning.

"They couldn't get around on our pitcher, so James got a good workout at second base and fielded some really nice plays," Verbanic said.

Then in the seventh, Episcopal's Rob Hart and Woody Dewing would reach first base with hits, but to no avail.

Looking forward, Verbanic would like to see the Huskies improve offensively and thinks his team has the work ethic to do it.

"We feel like we're not hitting the ball as well as we want to hit the ball and we're working very hard on that," he said. "We're focusing on two-strike hitting and hitting the ball the other way. It's one of those things that's a work in progress."

Flint Hill begins Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference play at 3:30 p.m. March 31 in a home game against St. James School.