La Plata High School starting pitcher Colby Murphy delivers a pitch in Tuesday’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division Championship game against North Point. The Warriors scored early and often en route to a 12-3 victory over the Eagles to claim the title.
Players from the La Plata High School baseball team cheer from the dugout during Tuesday’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division Championship game against North Point. The Warriors upended the Eagles 12-3.
La Plata High School starting pitcher Colby Murphy delivers a pitch in Tuesday’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division Championship game against North Point. The Warriors scored early and often en route to a 12-3 victory over the Eagles to claim the title.
Photo by Kevin Latney
Photo by Kevin Latney
Players from the La Plata High School baseball team cheer from the dugout during Tuesday’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division Championship game against North Point. The Warriors upended the Eagles 12-3.
Through the first half of the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division schedule, La Plata High School baseball coach John Childers and several of his players were quick to realize that the Warriors were struggling offensively.
La Plata (12-1), however, has had little troubles hitting over the latter portion of the schedule and on Tuesday afternoon they upended North Point, 12-3, in the SMAC Potomac Division Championship game behind a pair of home runs from junior Chet Bowling and solid pitching from starter Colby Murphy and reliever Andrew Laginze, who picked up the win in relief by tossing three scoreless innings.
"I think we were only hitting something like .150 through the first month of the season," said Childers, whose team will next compete in the Maryland 2A region and state tournament that gets under way on June 7. "We weren't scoring many runs, but our pitching had carried us. The last few games, though, we've been swinging the bats much better and we're peaking at the right time."
La Plata scored twice in the first, added two more in the second and extended the lead to 9-1 through four on Tuesday. North Point countered with two runs in the fifth to trim the deficit to 9-3, but Bowling responded by belting his second home run of the day to extend the margin back to 12-3.
"They were challenging me with fastballs all game, so I was just sitting on one each time up," said Bowling, who collected five runs batted in on Tuesday. "Early this season, I think a lot of us were struggling at the plate. But we have a lot of really good hitters on this team and it was only a matter of time until the bats started to come around."
