BASEBALL

It was a great day at Forest Glen Park. In addition to the #RV HU baseball team finishing Saturday’s postponed game by beating #20 Taylor 5-2, Frame’s crew went on to pick off their visitors twice more, 8-7, 5-2, to rack up three wins on the day.

Huntington won the series 3-1 having only lost Saturday’s opener. TU (24-9) entered the four-game set undefeated in league play but headed back to Upland with a 13-3 CL record.

HU had taken a 5-1 lead in Saturday’s nightcap before rain halted play. Alex McCutcheon was sitting on a no hitter after five when the rain came. When play resumed on Monday afternoon, Max Meisner took the mound to wrap up the win. McCutcheon’s performance on Saturday saw him give up a run, five walks and four strikeouts for his fourth win of the season.

After the Trojans worked a series of base on balls to walk in a run in their first at-bat, the Foresters countered with three of their own in the bottom of the frame. With two outs and Ian McCutcheon and Daniel Lichty on base, Jarret Gray came up with a clutch single to knock in McCutcheon while some nifty base-running allowed Lichty to scamper home on a Taylor bobble that same play. Gray would also eventually score on a second TU error.

HU continued to take advantage of their guests’ offerings which included scoring on another error in the third and then walking in a run in the fourth.  When all was said and done, the Foresters finished with six hits to Taylor’s three with Gray going 2-for-2 at the plate.

The two teams were back at it twenty minutes later for the opener of the originally scheduled doubleheader that featured a walk-off single by Gray in the bottom of the ninth that clinched an impressive 8-7 come-from-behind win.

Down to their last three outs and facing a 7-4 deficit, Huntington loaded the bases compliments of two base pokes and a walk. A passed ball allowed Camden Dice, who led off with an infield single, to cruise home after which sacrifice flies by Langston Ginder and Lichty sandwiched Ian McCutcheon getting hit by pitch. Tied up at 7-7, McCutcheon stole second to set up Gray’s game-ending heroics.

Brent Turner tossed the final inning to notch the win. The senior hurler had his work cut out for him as he inherited two base-runners, both of which eventually scored, with no outs but stayed the course to give up just one hit to snuff out what could have been a much more lethal Trojan rally.

Joey Butz and Meisner combined to spend the first eight frames on the mound where they gave up seven hits, seven runs and nine walks while fanning five.

The Foresters bookended the game offensively having scored four runs in the first and then adding another four in the ninth. Ian McCutcheon crushed his first pitch of the game over the left field fence for a two-run dinger to get things started for his team. Following McCutcheon’s second homer of the season, Lichty teed off for a double and then came around to score on Satchell Wilson’s single up the middle. The first inning also saw Wilson eventually score on a passed ball.

Unlike their hosts, the Trojans spread their seven runs over the course of five frames which included plating their final five in the latter part of the contest. They knotted things up by the sixth at 4-4, took a one-run lead in the seventh before touching home twice in the top of the ninth for what they hoped would only be insurance runs.

Mason Shinabery pitched a dandy in the nightcap to hold the Trojans in check. The senior hurler picked up the complete-game win by giving up three hits, two runs and four walks while striking out three.

Behind Lichty’s RBI-double in the third, the Foresters were the first to get on the board. They piled on three more runs in the sixth. After Ian McCutcheon led off with a standup double, the Trojans opted to intentionally walk Lichty which set the stage for Wilson to triple in both teammates. A few batters later, the junior shortstop tagged up on Dice’s sacrifice fly to push the lead to 4-0. Both Trojan runs came in the seventh to conjure up a little excitement at the end, but it was short-lived as Shinabery coaxed the Trojans into a fly out and ground out for the day’s final two outs.

With these three wins, the Foresters improve to 18-6 overall, 11-5 in league play. Next up is a four-game homestand with Mount Vernon over the weekend.