Parkland High School Baseball

Parkland and Northampton battled to a 1-1 tie after 7 innings of play in a pitcher's duel, but Parkland batters broke the game open in the top half of the 8th inning to beat Northampton 5-1.  Connor Higgins started the game on the mound for the Trojans and worked 5 strong innings striking out six, while allowing one run on three hits and one walk.  Alex Flynn came on in relief in the 6th inning and pitched three innings of no-hit baseball to gain his first win of the season.  Flynn struck out four. 

Northampton's pitcher also pitched well holding Trojan batters hitless until the lead off batter of the 4th inning.  The first three hitters of the 4th inning reached base on consecutive singles to load the bases with no outs, they were  Justin Afflerbach (1-for-3, sac bunt, run), Chris Rabasco (1-for-3, BB), and Hudson Rabenold (1-for-4, RBI, run).  Zach Merkle (1-for-3, HBP, RBI) broke the scoreless tie with the RBI groundout, but that is all the Trojans would get in the 4th.  Northampton scored their only run of the game in the 5th inning when a lead off double and ground out put the runner on third base, eventually scoring on a wild pitch.  In the 6h inning, Northampton put runners on first and second with one out, but Flynn was able to induce a ground ball for the inning ending 5-4-3 double play turned by Afflerbach-Bruno-Mosser. 

In the 8th inning, Brad Vasilik reached base on an error that put him on second base.  After a sacrifice bunt by Afflerbach to put Vasilik on third, Northampton intentionally walked Rabasco to put runners on the corners with one out.  Vasilik scored the go-ahead run on an RBI fielder's choice by Rabenold.  Merkle then singled to load the bases.  Another Northampton error on a groundball off the bat of Flynn plated two more Parkland runs.  Gabe Mosser (2-for-4, RBI) then drilled a line drive RBI single to increase the Trojan lead to 5-1.  Flynn put down Northampton batters in order in the bottom of the 8th, including two strikeouts, for the win.

After a scoreless first inning, Northampton scored two runs in both the 2nd and 3rd innings for a 4-0 lead after three innings of play.  Staritng pitcher Tanner Vitovitch pitched three innings allowing 4 runs with four walks and two strikouts.  Relief pitcher Ryan Giovenco came on in the 4th inning and shut down Northampton batters.  Giovenco worked a total of 3 1/3 inings giving up 5 runs with four walks and four strikeouts.

In the 5th, Parkland’s offense rallied with a 1-out walk to Ben Trinkle and a single by Kyle Friebolin(1-3, 1 run).  Matt Mellinger (2-3,rbi, BB) then followed with an RBI single to score Trinkle.   A walk to Braeden Duff loaded the bases and another base on balls by Harsha Bollu  (1-2, RBI,BB) scored another run, cutting the Northampton lead to 7-2.

In the 7^th inning Northampton added two more runs and rallied for more when they loaded the bases with 1 out.  Lefty reliever Scott Hudock was able to pitch out of the inning without any further damage.  In the bottom of the 7th, the JV Trojans could only manage one base runner, a pinch hit single by Nick Stillitano (1-1), and lost by a score of 9-2.  Andrew Roth (1-3) also had  a single in the game. 

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