It wasn’t a case of baseball as much as it looked more like mudball. There were drenched scorebooks. Drenched players. Everything seemed wet and muddy, but because the Central League schedule is filled, and games are difficult to reschedule with the pending weather that’s supposed to hit this area this weekend. So Strath Haven and decided to rough it and play in some tough conditions on Thursday.
Strath Haven won 6-2 in sock-wringing weather, with both teams braving through a steady rain, turning large segments of Strath Haven’s field into a quagmire. Radnor dropped to 0-2 overall and in the Central League, while Strath Haven, the defending PIAA District 1 Class AAA champs, improved to 2-1 and 2-0 in the league.
Radnor’s Kyle VonHertsenberg took the loss, as the Red Raiders closed a daunting first week of the season. They opened with a loss , the defending league champs, and finished the week with Strath Haven Thursday. Combined, the two teams finished with a 28-8 record against Central League opponents last year.
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And for five innings Thursday, Radnor was in the game, locked up in a 2-2 tie when Strath Haven scored three to take control. The Red Raiders finished with four hits, but their two runs were unearned.
“We were in this game. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be in every game,” Radnor coach John McGillian said. “We’re having trouble hitting. They made some errors that led to both of our runs. I don’t know what it is. I like being aggressive at the plate. I will never fault any of my players for being aggressive, but we got overly aggressive on the base paths when we did make contact and got caught.
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“We need to focus more on our approach at the plate. In the first inning of both of our games, we started well. We got some things going, and we were OK. We’re going to try and combat it with more practice hitting. We have good pitching—we need to score runs. We opened up with two very good teams, and I understand that. We’re ready to play. If we can just need to find a way on base, we’re going to be okay. It is frustrating to watch us early here at the plate.”
One bright spot has been Connor Walsh, Radnor’s No. 1 pitcher, but also one of the Red Raiders’ offensive threats. His sacrifice fly led to a Radnor run and he’s knocked in two of the Red Raiders’ three runs this year.
“The last game, we only put up one run off of three hits, so this game we started to put the bat on the ball and I know we’re only going to get better,” said Walsh, who’s headed to the University of Cincinnati of a baseball scholarship.
“We might have been a little too anxious in the bases, but I think it showed we were hungry and wanted to go get runs. We just got a little too aggressive and we got caught.”
Radnor will try to get into the win column Monday at Penncrest at 3:45 p.m., and at Harriton on Thursday, at 3:45 p.m.
