Highlanders Capture 3rd Place
in “Let’s Play Two” Tournament

McLean won the pre-game coin toss and elected to be the home team. Fitzgerald was sharp in the first inning and retired the side easily despite a one-out base hit. Riley Beiro led off for McLean in the bottom of the first and in what would become a common theme of the day, laced a sharp line drive to right field that the Viking outfielder snared for a very nice catch. McLean did get a two-out single from Fitzgerald, but the inning ended when Denis Buckley was called out for interfering with Woodbridge’s catcher as Fitzgerald attempted to steal 2nd.

In the 2nd inning, Fitzgerald struck out two Vikings in setting Woodbridge down in order. McLean threatened in the bottom of the 2nd after David Roffman and Justin Johnson both lined two-out singles, but Chris Russo’s line drive to the right-center field gap was run down as the Viking centerfielder made a very nice grab. Fitzgerald came back out for the top of the 3rd with the score still 0-0.

Woodbridge drew first blood in the top of the third via two singles, a walk, and a hit by pitch. After Fitzgerald escaped further damage with another strikeout, Woodbridge took the field for the bottom of the 3rd leading 2-0.

Riley Beiro led off the 3rd for McLean by ripping a two-strike fastball right back up the middle. Biero then stole 2nd, and after a Myer strikeout, advanced to 3rd on a single to left field by Sean Fitzgerald. Denis Buckley then came to bat with runners at the corners and hit a ground ball right on the nose, but directly at the Viking shortstop, who promptly flipped to 2nd to turn the inning ending double play. Again, the Highlanders left a pair of runners on base as Woodbridge still led 2-0.

Fitzgerald retired the Vikings in order in the 4th, while tacking on another strikeout. Erik Payne led off the bottom of the 4th for McLean and coaxed a walk. Kendall Wilkins followed with a base hit to right field, moving Payne to 2nd. David Roffman then laid down an excellent sacrifice bunt, advancing both runners and giving the Highlanders runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out. Justin Johnson then coaxed a walk to load the bases for Chris Russo, who worked the count full before walking again, this time scoring Payne and making the score 2-1. Riley Beiro then came to the plate with the bases still loaded. Myer’s 2nd pitch to Beiro was in the dirt and skipped past the Viking catcher, allowing Wilkins to score and making the score 2-2. Myer came back to strike out Beiro, bringing Quinn Pippin to the plate with runners on 2nd and 3rd and two out. Pippin hit a line shot into the left-center field gap, but again the Woodbridge outfield came up huge for the Vikings as the left fielder was able to make a beautiful diving catch, robbing Pippin of extra bases and again denying the Highlanders of multiple runs. As Fitzgerald came out for the top of the 5th, the score was tied at 2-2.

The Vikings led off with the top of the order in the 5th, and leadoff hitter Jeff Hanley produced an excellent at-bat by coaxing a full-count walk out of Fitzgerald. After a seeing-eye single between 1st and 2nd base, Highlander catcher Denis Buckley attempted to pick Hanley off of 2nd base. The throw was just a bit wide and glanced off the glove of SS Chris Russo, skipping into the outfield. Russo immediately turned to retrieve the ball, and was subsequently called for obstructing the Viking base runner. The umpires’ call put Woodbridge runners at 2nd and 3rd with no one out. Woodbridge was able to cash in both runners via an intentional walk, two hit batters, and two more singles. At the end of 4 ½ innings, the Vikings had reclaimed the lead at 5-2.

McLean again produced two base runners in the bottom of the 5th inning, but stranded both as Myer again wiggled out of the jam. At the end of 5, the score was Woodbridge 5, McLean 2.

Sophomore Charlie Geiger came on in relief of Fitzgerald to start the top of the 6th inning. The young left-hander was making just his 2nd Varsity appearance for the Highlanders, and struggled with his command as Woodbridge forced a pair of walks to go along with three base hits. Freshman Billy Heberton came on for the third time in three games and also struggled with his command, allowing another pair of walks and two more hits. As the inning finally came to an end, the Vikings had tacked on six insurance runs and the score was 11-2.

The Highlanders fought valiantly in the bottom half of the 6th inning, as Johnson walked, Pippin singled, Fitzgerald walked, and Buckley lined a double off the fence in center field to clear the bases. Myer bore down to get Payne to fly out to left field, however and the game ended after six innings due to time limit.

McLean had left a total of 11 base runners stranded in the game, as Woodbridge’s Jake Myer went the distance despite allowing eight Highlander base hits. Sean Fitzgerald took the loss for the Highlanders despite striking out 7 in five innings of work. Denis Buckley (1-2, 3 RBI), Sean Fitzgerald (2-3, run), and Justin Johnson (1-1, 2 walks) led the way for the Highlanders offensively.

“I give Woodbridge all the credit in the world for taking this game tonight”, McLean coach John Thomas commented afterward. “You have to tip your cap to Myer for throwing a ton of pitches out there and wiggling out of a number of jams. He pitched really tough tonight. I thought we put a lot of very good swings on the ball, but again, Woodbridge deserves a ton of credit for playing tremendous defense in the outfield. They came up with some big-time catches in some clutch spots, and they deserved to win the game because of it. I thought that Sean’s stuff was very good tonight, but he missed on a couple of pitches and we also suffered from some poor pitch selection in key spots. That is obviously 100% on me. Our two young guys obviously struggled out of the bullpen tonight, but that’s why we play in Spring Break tournaments. Both of those kids are going to help us out a ton in the future, and if they can learn from this experience than this can become a very positive experience for us.”

The Highlanders were back at it again on Tuesday, March 18th in a 3rd place game against the Notre Dame Academy Dragons, the defending Virginia State Independent Schools champion. Both teams entered the contest at 2-1 on the young season. The Highlanders elected to start Senior Quinn Pippin on the mound on short rest, while the Dragons countered with Senior Ryan Crosby, a Virginia Commonwealth University signee.

Notre Dame won the coin toss and elected to be the home team. Riley Beiro beat out an infield hit to start the game, but was promptly gunned down trying to steal 2nd base by Dragon catcher Brian Forsten, a William & Mary signee. After Quinn Pippin walked, Crosby bore down to strike out both Sean Fitzgerald and Denis Buckley looking, ending the inning.

Pippin came out very sharp for the Highlanders in the bottom of the 1st, inducing three straight groundouts to set the Dragons down in order.

Erik Payne led off the top of the 2nd for the Highlanders by ripping a two-strike breaking ball into right field for a leadoff single. Kendall Wilkins followed with a slow roller to the Notre Dame 1st baseman, who bobbled the ball enabling Wilkins to reach 1st, and pushing Payne to 2nd. David Roffman followed with an excellent sacrifice bunt, advancing both base runners and giving McLean runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out. Justin Johnson came to the plate for the Highlanders, and on the 1st pitch of the at-bat, Payne broke for home as Crosby went out of the windup in an attempted suicide squeeze. Crosby missed badly and the ball skated directly to the backstop as Payne crossed the plate with McLean’s first run. Crosby came back to strike out Johnson looking, but as Chris Russo was at the plate with two outs, the Dragon pitcher balked while on the rubber, scoring Wilkins and making the score 2-0. Crosby again bore down to strike out Russo, but McLean had jumped out to a two run lead.

Pippin walked the Dragon clean-up hitter in five pitches to open up the bottom of the 2nd, but the senior then settled down to get out of the inning despite another walk. The Highlanders were aided significantly by a one out pick-off of the Notre Dame base runner at first base.

The top of the Highlander order was retired 1-2-3 in the top of the third via three straight groundouts, and Pippin returned the favor in the bottom of the inning, allowing another walk but striking out right fielder Danny Reeves looking to get out of the inning. Riley Beiro also provided the play of the game for with a diving grab at the fence of a line shot off the bat of Crosby. At the end of three, McLean led 2-0.

Denis Buckley led off the top of the 4th for McLean by beating out a slow roller that the Dragon shortstop couldn’t quite come up with for an infield hit. Payne laid down an excellent sacrifice bunt, moving Buckley to 2nd with one out. Kendall Wilkins and David Roffman both followed with singles, loading the bases for McLean with one out and bringing Johnson to the plate. Johnson hit a ground ball to the Dragon shortstop, who elected to go to 1st, retiring Johnson but scoring Payne. Crosby then bore down again and struck out Chris Russo to end the inning, but the Highlanders had pushed the lead to 3-0.

Pippin continued to roll on the mound in the 4th, overcoming an infield error by inducing two groundouts and a strikeout to retire the side. McLean came to bat again in the top of the 5th with a 3-0 lead.

Crosby settled in on the mound for Notre Dame and struck out Beiro to lead off the 5th. Pippin then bounced out to the 2nd baseman, and Sean Fitzgerald followed with a two out single to left field. Fitzgerald was thrown out by Forsten attempting to steal 2nd base, ending the inning.

Pippin set down the heart of the Dragon order 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 5th, and Jacob West came on in relief of Crosby for the top of the 6th inning. Buckley let off for the Highlanders with a ground ball to 3rd base that the Dragon infield could not handle. Buckley reached 1st on the error. Erik Payne then walked, and Kendall Wilkins was hit by a pitch to load the bases for McLean with no one out. David Roffman then grounded out to shortstop, scoring Buckley and advancing the runners to 2nd and 3rd with one out. However, Forsten again came up big for the Dragons by picking the Highlander runner off of 3rd base to help West escape further damage. Pippin came out for the bottom of the 6th now staked to a 4-0 lead.

Pippin struck out Brett Donalen to begin the 6th, and Forsten then singled to center field with one out. Notre Dame then inserted a courtesy runner into the game, who promptly attempted to steal 2nd base but was gunned down by catcher David Roffman, clearing the bases with two outs. The Dragon clean-up batter then grounded out to Chris Russo at 2nd base, retiring the side and sending McLean into the 7th inning with a 4-0 lead.

The Highlanders went down quietly in the 7th, leaving Corey Cannon stranded at 1st base after a two-out single by Buckley. Pippin took the mound for McLean in the bottom of the 7th still holding a 4-0 lead.

Josh Lamkey led off the bottom of the 7th for the Dragons with a double down the left field line. Reeves then followed with a single up the middle, scoring Lamkey and making the score 4-1. Pippin then struck out the next batter, but allowed a walk to the next Notre Dame hitter. With the bases loaded, Pippin coaxed a ground ball to 2nd base, but the ball took a bad hop and skipped past 2nd baseman Chris Russo, scoring a run and leaving runners at 1st and 3rd with one out. With the score at 4-2, the Highlanders elected to bring in Buckley out of the bullpen to save the game. Buckley’s first pitch was ripped towards Pippin (now playing 3rd place), who dove to his left to snare the ball on one hop and promptly fired the ball to first for the out. The Dragons did push their 3rd run of the inning across the plate to make the score 4-3, with the tying run now on 2nd base with two out. Roffman was called for catcher’s interference as the next hitter’s bat tipped his mitt while hitting a foul ball, giving the Dragons runners on 1st and 2nd. Buckley then got ahead of Forsten 1-2 before firing three straight fastballs to both corners, apparently narrowly missing each time to walk Forsten and load the bases with two out and the score at 4-3. Blake Mancari, the Dragons clean-up batter, came to bat and got ahead in the count at 2-1 before squibbing a difficult flare between 3rd and 2nd base. Shortstop Sean Fitzgerald made an excellent diving catch on the play to end the game and preserve the 4-3 win for McLean.

The Highlanders had played well in beating a very sound Notre Dame team to take 3rd place in the Let’s Play Two Invitational. Quinn Pippin went 6 2/3 innings in just his 2nd Varsity start, throwing just 91 pitchers in striking out 7. Denis Buckley earned his first save of the young season. Offensively, McLean was paced by Buckley (2-4), Wilkins (1-2, run), and Payne (1-3, run). Following the game both Pippin (2-0, 9 Ks in 9 1/3 IP for the tournament) and Payne (6-10 for the tournament) were named to the Let’s Play Two All-Tournament team.

“I was very, very pleased with the way our guys approached this game”, Coach Thomas commented. “To be able to come back and beat a team of Notre Dame’s caliber less than 24 hours after losing our first game speaks volume about the leadership and character of this group. Our guys were ready to play and I thought we did a great job of executing the little things offensively on a day when our running game was completely shut down by an excellent catcher. Obviously, Quinn had another very good start for us and I thought he did a nice job of mixing his pitches and making clutch pitches in big spots. We need to get his walks down a bit, but he is progressing nicely. Buck came in and did his job in the 7th, and it’s good to get him off to a good start in that role. All in all, we’re pretty pleased with the way this tournament played out for us, and we’re going to get to work from here to get better before we play three excellent teams in the next 10 days.”

McLean continues non-district play with it’s home opener against Yorktown High School on Tuesday, March 26th, at 6:30 PM.