Baseball: Owings Mills, Witt, Topple New Town

En route to its 3-1 record to begin the season, New Town hadn’t really faced a starting pitcher that wielded pinpoint control with his curveball.

Monday afternoon against Owings Mills they ran into Tyler Witt.

In fact, the senior hurler located all three of his pitches, fanning 10 over seven innings while his offense put up nine runs in the first three frames on the way to a 10-3 victory at home.

Brooks Sandler and Jean Carlos Sologuren each went 2 for 4 with three RBI apiece as the early run support allowed Witt to settle into a groove and keep hitters off balance all afternoon.

“When I’m having a good game, I’m a tough pitcher, I think,” said Witt, who also went 2 for 3 at the plate with two RBIs and a run scored. “When you have the run support you don’t have much to worry about as a pitcher.”

Eagerly looking to bounce back after a frustrating loss to Loch Raven, Owings Mills head coach Tom Blumenauer was very impressed with what he saw out of his No. 1 starter.

“Particularly in high school ball, you got to keep batters off balance,” Blumenauer said, his Eagles improving to 4-2 on the season. “He was mixing his curveball, changeup and fastball real well today. He kept them on their toes a little bit, not sure what to expect and froze a lot of guys. Excellent job today throwing strikes and working ahead.”   

New Town starter Dion Roche battled throughout, striking out eight and only allowing one run—on a Sologuren bloop single in the last of the sixth—in his final three frames after giving up nine total runs in the first three innings.  

However, after falling behind early on, the Titans (3-2) couldn’t string together enough good at-bats off Witt to try and chip away.

“This was a good pitcher,” said New Town coach Chad Zamarron, who called Witt’s hook the best his team’s seen this year. “He’s the first guy that could really control his curve ball and that caught us off guard. He had us uncomfortable at bat and we just weren’t hitting the ball hard enough.”

Although they did collect seven hits, it was only during the fifth inning that New Town was able to string together multiple base knocks in an inning. After a John Scott walk, Andre Johnson (2 for 4, one steal) singled and Shawheem Dowdy crushed a double to dead-center to score Scott.

Jason Terry’s RBI groundout plated Johnson to make the score 9-3. However, the Titans couldn’t put anything together in their final two innings off of Witt.

As slow as New Town started, the Eagles got out of the gate equally as hot as the first six Owings Mills hitters reached base to open the game. Four runs crossed the plate before Roche struck out Kris Richardson for his first out of the game.

After the Titans answered with a run in the top of the second, the Eagles responded with three, punctuated by Sandler’s two-out, two-run single to make the score 7-1.

A Witt two-RBI single in the bottom of the third increased the lead to eight.

“You jump up on ‘em [early], they get their heads down and are not sure if they can come back from it or not,” Blumenauer said of what his squad’s early lead accomplished. “You’ve gotten them on their heels a little bit and they are aren’t able to manufacture runs because one run isn’t going to do anything. It takes some options out of the game plan.”

 Zamarron conceded that slow starts played into both of his squad’s losses this season.

“You just get down,” Zamarron said. “We gave up a few runs and the attitude’s not there. If we fight through that, we can win.”

BOX SCORE

Owings Mills 10, New Town 3

NT 010 020 0----3  7 2

OM 432 001 x----10 8 2

Pitching

               IP            R             H             BB           K

NT

Roche   6              10           8              4              8

OM       

Witt       7              3              7              1              10

Batting

RBI: NT-Dowdy, Terry.

        OM-Sandler 3, Sologuren 3, Witt 2, Lorden.

2B: NT-Dowdy.

      OM-Mazor, Eber.

3B: OM-Witt.

SB: NT-Kemp 2, Wasner, Johnson.

      OM-Tucker, Witt, Sandler.