Parkland High School Baseball

The Parkland Trojans continued their winning ways with a convincing 13-1 win over Wilson West Lawn in a non-conference match-up.  Starting pitcher Michael Jenkins worked four strong innings to collect his first varsity victory.  Jenkins allowed one run on two hits while striking out two.  Jenkins retired the first five batters of the game before a Parkland fielding error put a runner on base for Wilson.  Furthermore, he retired 9 of the first 11 batters of the game with the two Wilson hitters only reaching base due to two Parkland fielding errors.  Jenkins did not allow a base hit until the 4th inning when Wilson got its two hits and scored their lone run of the game. 

The Trojans plated three runs in the second inning when they loaded the based with a Tyler Bruno (3-for-3, two triples, BB, HBP, 2 R, 2 RBI) single, Harrison Rabenold (0-for-2, BB, 2 R, RBI) walk, and a Cullan Wadsworth (1-for-2, HBP, 2 R) bunt single.  Austin Mueller (1-for-4, RBI) then hit an RBI single followed by a Jenkins RBI ground out.  Wadsworth scored Parkland's third run of the inning on a wild pitch.  Parkland tacked on another three runs in the third inning when Justin Afflerbach (1-for-4, HBP, R) reached base on an error and Chris Rabasco (1-for-3, triple, BB, R, RBI) tripled to deep centerfield to score Afflerbach.  Bruno followed with his own triple to the gap in right-center to score Rabasco.  Bruno then scored on a Rabenold RBI ground out to put Parkland up by a score of 6-0 after three innings of play.

After Wilson got on the board with a run in the 4th inning, Parkland added three runs each in the 5th and 7th inings, along with a single run in the 6th inning.  In the 5th, Bruno drove another ball to the right-center gap for his second triple of the game to score Evan McAndrew (0-for-3, 2 BB, 2 R), who had reached base on a walk.  Jeff Strisovsky (1-for-4, 2 RBI) drove in two runs with a 2-RBI single.  Kyle Friebolin (0-for-2, RBI) plated Parkland's run in the 6th inning on an RBI ground out that scored McAndrew.  In the 7th, Isaac Neal (0-for-0, BB, R) walked, pinch hitter Kyle Novobilski (1-for-1, R) singled, and Afflerbach was hit by a pitch to load the bases.  Pinch hitter Connor Higgins (0-for-1, R, RBI) hit an RBI fielder's choice, Friebolin then reached base on a fielding error that allowed two more Parkland runs to score for the 13-1 lead.

Relief pitcher Harsha Bollu took the mound in the 5th inning and worked a total of two innings of no-hit ball, allowing four walks while striking out four.  After walking the based loaded in the 6th inning with one out, Bollu worked himself out of the jam with an infield pop up and ended the threat with a strikeout.   Alec Bartholomew pitched a 1-2-3 perfect 7th inning with two strikeouts to seal the win for the Trojans.