Baseball: Huskies Lose Tug-of-War with Middleburg

After a back-and-forth battle that saw at least one base runner in each half-inning, the Flint Hill baseball team fell to Middleburg Academy 9-8 on Tuesday. 

The Dragons struck first with three runs in the first inning off starting pitcher Tommy Doyle, who had five strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings. Nick Bazzarone, who started in center field, took the mound for the rest of the game to tally four strikeouts of his own.

The Huskies responded with two runs after Bazzarone led off with a double, second baseman Felix Van der Vaart was hit by a pitch and shortstop David Belt drew a walk to load the bases for Harrison Gray to knock two in with a groundball to shortstop. 

The Dragons tallied another two runs at the top of the second, and the Huskies answered with one on a sacrifice fly from right fielder Calvin Baxter to score left fielder Rick Armstrong and put their deficit at 5-3.

After holding the Dragons scoreless in the third, the Huskies' offense knocked in two runs. Van der Vaart walked and advanced to third on keen base running that capitalized on the Dragons' errors with Belt at the plate. On the next pitch, Belt hit a line drive double to center field to score Van der Vaart then scored on a single from Gray to tie the game.

The tug-of-war for the lead continued as the Dragons took a two-run lead in the top of the fourth only to see Van der Vaart smash a two-run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the inning. When the Dragons snatched back the lead in the fifth for a one-run lead, the Huskies again answered with one run of their own thanks to a sacrifice fly from Armstrong.

But it was the Dragons who last took the lead in the seventh to earn the 9-8 win. 

"We battled at the plate. We did a good job at the plate," said Coach Tom Verbanic, who is in his second year with the program. "So far in the first nine games our pitching and defense has been excellent, so I don't know what happened."

Though the 2012 season has seen solid defense from the Huskies, their effort Tuesday night included seven errors — their most of the season so far.

"We haven't played defense like this in two years," Verbanic said. "In baseball it snowballs a little bit, when you're not getting outs on the mound and then you make errors and you give them extra at-bats. ... With the errors we gave them so many extra at-bats and that's why we lost the game."

The Huskies will begin Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference play 5 p.m. Thursday when they travel to St. James.