MORGANTOWN – Good pitching will always beat good hitting and vice-versa.
Former Major League manager Casey Stengel came up with that ideology and it still holds true today, no matter what level of baseball.
But what if both teams have good pitching?
On Friday night at Shilling Field on the campus of Mylan Park, a pitching duel broke out and, in the end, it was John Marshall’s good pitching that led to a 5-1 win over University and its good pitching.
The Monarchs’ Hunter Coulter was the difference as he pitched a complete-game two hitter. He was able to fight through six walks with the help of four strikeouts and some solid defense from his teammates.
Meanwhile, UHS starter Max Cash tossed three no-hit innings to begin the game.
“We weren’t really looking to ramp Max’s pitch count up today,” UHS head coach Travis Renner said. “He was cruising for the first three innings. We started thinking that maybe we could get four or maybe five innings out of him.”
Cash was staked to a 1-0 lead through three innings as the Hawks (4-7) scored their only run when Daniel Grabo scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Colson Jenkins.
However, Cash ran into a bit of trouble in the fourth inning when Jayden Astipalatis hit a two-run double to give the Monarchs (6-3) a 2-1 lead.
“I just couldn’t find it,” Cash said of the fourth inning. “I was doing my best to get it in the zone, and it was just not working. It was too far misses and too perfect of strikes, so it just wasn’t working.”
Cash finished with six strikeouts in his 3.1 innings of work, he allowed just two hits and walked two. Grabo relieved Cash on the mound and he struck out four for a total of 10 strikeouts from UHS on the evening.
“If you take the first couple of games away from us, and we’re in every single ball game that we played, we are in it, and we got to find a way to win games,” Renner said. “It doesn’t matter if you win four or five innings, you have to win games.”
Renner did say he feels like the Hawks have some of their pitching woes figured out after three solid starts from their staff this week.
Now the Hawks need to find their offense. UHS managed just the two hits in the contest with Brance McCune and Barett Shuba each picking up a single.
John Marshall broke the game open in the top of the seventh inning as it scored three runs on four hits to effectively put the game away. Astipalits and Mason Markonich each had two hits for the JM attack that did not have an extra base hit in the contest. The Monarchs did take advantage of three UHS errors.
University returns to action on Tuesday when it travels to John Marshall for a 5 p.m. contest. The next home game for UHS is on Wednesday when it hosts Morgantown at 5 p.m.
By Eric Herter
John Marshall 5, UHS 1
JM 000 200 3 – 5 8 2
UHS 010 000 0 – 1 2 3
JM – Martin 2 1 1 0, Hughes 4 0 1 1, Markonich 4 2 2 0, Cisar 3 1 1 0, Astipalitis 4 0 2 3, Ankrom 3 0 0 0, Knapp 2 0 0 1, Harrison 3 0 0 0, Gaiser 3 1 1 0. Totals 28 5 8 5.
UHS – McCune 3 0 1 0, Cash 3 0 0 0, Montague 3 0 0 0, Grabo 2 1 0 0, Br. Shuba 1 0 0 0, Alexander 2 0 0 0, Jenkins 2 0 0 1, Bryner 2 0 0 0, Neer 0 0 0 0, Ba. Shuba 3 0 1 0. Totals 21 1 2 1.
WP – Coulter 7ip, 2h, 1r, 1er, 6bb, 4k
LP – Cash 3.1ip, 3h, 2r, 2er, 2bb, 6k
