One-Hit Wonder: Owings Mills Scratches Past Lansdowne 4-1 With One Base Hit

may have missed out on several opportunities with runners in scoring position en route to its 4-1 victory at Lansdowne Friday afternoon, but thanks to Tyler Witt, a couple runs here and there was more than enough.

For his second straight outing, the senior hurler commanded all three of his pitches, allowing just four hits and a walk over seven innings while fanning nine.

Witt, who lost his shutout bid with two outs in the final inning, has struck out 19 batters over his last 14 innings pitched.

“Once again Tyler stepped up huge,” Eagles coach Tom Blumenauer said, his squad moving to 6-2 on the year. “He kept them off balance and had another dominant outing. He’s getting better and better as the season progresses.

“You can’t say it enough, how important is it to throw strikes, and he’s been throwing strikes these last two outings. Throwing 86 pitches over seven innings, you know he’s been around the plate the entire game. His confidence is sky high.”

On the flipside, pounding the strike zone proved to be a challenge for the Vikings (4-2), who surrendered only one hit for the game, but yielded eight walks and hit two batters.

Senior Shane Montgomery, normally a centerfielder, was close to unhittable when he was around the plate, striking out nine over his five innings of work. However, Montgomery’s control issues caught up with him in the third inning where the senior gave up three of his six total walks.

After free passes to Sean Lorden and Brett Mazor, a Witt looping single to center brought home the Eagles first run and Jean Carlos Sologuren followed with a sacrifice fly to plate Mazor.

Montgomery’s next offering skipped past backup catcher Stephen Dennis and Witt raced home to make the score 3-0.  Owings Mills would add its fourth run in the fourth inning—again without recording a hit—on a fielder’s choice via a dropped third strike. (Montgomery would go on to strike out the side for the rare four-strikeout inning.)

Lansdowne head coach Matt Kohel prepared himself for a few growing pains with his pitcher, who up until this season had been strictly an outfielder.

“It’s only Shane’s second appearance in high school,” said Kohel of his starter, who had only logged two innings before today’s game. “He’s inexperienced and his mechanics need work, but that’s ultimately the game. Putting runners on and a ground ball here, an error here, an error there and that’s four runs.”

To Montgomery’s credit, he was the only Vikings hitter to have a beat on Witt at the plate, going 2 for 3 with a double, the game’s only extra base hit (for either side).

In fact, it wasn’t until J.T. Tucker lined a single to right in the bottom of the seventh that a non-pitcher (again for either side) recorded a hit. Tucker would end up scoring Lansdowne’s only run when Josh Shook grounded a single between first and second and after Melvin Shook followed by reaching on an error, the Vikings actually brought the tying run to the plate with two away.

“We could have easily finished this real early, but we left ‘em hanging around,” Blumenauer said, referencing his squad’s missed opportunities prior. “A key hit there in that bottom of the seventh and suddenly your talking a 4-3 game as opposed to a 4-1 game.

However, Witt came up big once more, whiffing Stephen Dennis on a 2-2 curveball to close out the game with runners on the corners and the top of the line up set to come up for Lansdowne.

Kohel praised the opposing starter, saying that Witt possessed the best assortment of pitches of any starter his squad had faced this year. However, he anticipates with a little more game time, his hitters will be better equipped to face a pitcher like Witt.

“Given more time out here playing, we could probably hit a guy like that later in the year,” Kohel said. “But, because we’ve been in the gym, those curveballs are off with our guys and we can’t sit back and wait for them. They’re not getting the pitch recognition.”

BOX SCORE

Owings Mills 4, Lansdowne 1

OM 003 100 0----4 1 2

L      000 000 1----1 4 0

Pitching

OM                        IP            R             H             BB           K

Witt                       7              1              4              1              9

L

Montgomery     5              4              1              6              9

Miller                    2              0              0              2              2

Batting

RBI: OM-Witt

        L-J. Shook

2B: L-Montgomery

SB: OM-Lorden 4, Mazor 2, Tucker 2, Weinapple.

      L-Childress.