No. 22 Middletown Takes the 2A West Region Championship

The 2A West Region Championship featured two Frederick County schools, the Middletown Knights and Oakdale Bears. This was the third meeting between the two teams, with Middletown winning both the previous matchups by scores of 7-2 and 12-3.

Determined to avoid the season sweep and advance to the state semifinals, Oakdale jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first. Leadoff man Logan DeBord walked to start the game and worked his way to third stealing second and advancing on a wild pitch. With one out, Reece Antognoni drove in DeBord for the first run of the game with a line drive double to right field. Antognoni would eventually score on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Jake Turner for the second run.

In the bottom half of the inning, Knights starting pitcher Luke Pryor helped himself out at the plate by launching a first-pitch curveball way over the fence in left field with two outs for a solo homerun. L. Pryor would settle in on the mound following the first throwing three consecutive scoreless innings through the fourth.

In the meantime, Middletown’s bats came alive. The Knights plated four in the third to take the lead and two more in the fourth making it 7-2. Following a bunt single and a stolen base to start the third by Jacob Pryor, Graham Brown singled scoring J. Pryor to tie the game. Trevor Woelkers singled on the ensuing at bat and L. Pryor successful sacrificed the runners to second and third with one out on a bunt. Cole Crist delivered by roping a double down the line in left scoring two runs and later scored scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Paul McHugh.

The Knights were able to get the leadoff man on again in the fourth starting their second rally in as many innings as Keegan Waters singled to left field. J. Pryor then reached base on an error and with two outs, L. Pryor delivered the big blow this time with a double to center scoring both Waters and J. Pryor.

Oakdale wouldn’t go easy however as they responded in the top half of the fifth inning cutting to the Knights lead to just one. With one out, DeBord tripled to left and scored on an error at short as Middletown was trying to get the ball in. The Bears next batter, Robert Wachter reached on an infield single and advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch. Following a strikeout for the second out in the inning, Justin Ritter drove in Wachter with an RBI single to right and Turner then capped off the four-run  outburst for the Bears by ripping a two-run homerun to left field.

Middletown went down quietly in the bottom of the fifth giving Oakdale a chance to build on their momentum in the top of the sixth. Brown came on in relief of L. Pryor and struck out the first two batters before getting inducing a ground ball to break the Bears offensive rhythm.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Knights got the insurance they needed taking advantage of a costly Oakdale error that would have ended the inning. Instead, Middletown plated two more runs highlighted by a McHugh RBI single.

Brown came back out for Middletown on the mound in the seventh and struck out the first two batters he faced. After conceding back-to-back walks and bringing the tying run to the plate, Brown barred down and got Ethan Reifer to pop-out to right field for the final out of the ballgame.

L. Pryor (2-for-2, 3 RBI’s, 2 R’s), Cole Crist (1-for-2, 2 RBI’s, 2 R’s, 2 BB’s), and Paul McHugh (1-for-3, 2RBI’s) led Middletown’s offense as they claimed the 2A West Region Championship for the seventh time in school history.

L. Pyror also picked up the win despite giving up six runs (five earned) on six hits and three walks, while striking out eight in five innings. Brown earned the save pitching a scoreless final two frames striking out four.

With the 9-6 win, Middletown will now travel to Montgomery Blair High School on Tuesday night where they will face Fallston for a spot in the State Championship Game.