No. 15 Northern (Cal.) Wins Classic Pitching Duel Over No. 9 Huntingtown

For the fourth straight year, No. 15 Northern (Cal.) and No. 9 Huntingtown met in the 3A South Region of the MPSSAA State Tournament Tuesday night. It’s fair to say that Huntingtown has had their number as the Hurricanes knocked the Patriots out of the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and swept the regular season home and home series leading up to this one.

Fans that came out to support both schools were treated to an instant classic that featured both teams ace pitchers. The highly anticipated matchup between Northern’s Marcus Lee Sang (St. Johns) and Ryan Terrents (Towson) certainly lived up to the hype and more as both went pitch for pitch dominating for seven inning straight.

Baseball is a game of numbers and for two pitchers to have almost the same pitching line for a complete game was truly something special to watch.  Lee Sang and Terrents both allowed two hits apiece in their seven innings of work, tallied double digit strikeouts (Lee Sang 11, Terrents 13) and limited their free passes (Lee Sang 2, Terrents 3). The game flew by and before you knew it we were headed for extras.

Both pitchers reached their pitch limit and came out for relief in the eighth as Northern turned to Matt Jarman, and Huntingtown went to Jack Rosnage. The change in pitchers allowed for a few more baserunners in the extra frames but Jarman and Rosnage went toe-to-toe and continued to give their respective offenses a chance to break through.

Northern had the first really good opportunity to score and possibly win it in the eight when Grayson Lewis and Zach Crounse both singled with one out. Rosnage though barred down and struck out the next two batters to strikeout the side and get out of the jam. A leadoff single by Matt Pritchett and a walk to Terrents placed a runner in scoring position for only the second time in the game for the Hurricanes in the bottom half. However just like Rosnage did in the top half, Jarman got a big strikeout to end the threat. The ninth was fairly quiet on both sides and the game headed to the tenth still scoreless.

Jonathan Barber doubled to left to lead off the top of the tenth for the Patriots and Crounse walked with one out. Rosnage would get Lee Sang to fly out to left field and with two outs, Jarman came to the plate with a chance to help his team out on offense. Jarman did just that delivering a single to right field to plate Barber for the game's first run and Matt Davidson then followed it up with a single of his own to score courtesy runner Tony Hotton as Northern took the 2-0 lead.

Back to back walks to Pritchett and Jayson Brunclik opened the bottom of the tenth giving Huntingtown plenty of life. Three pitches later, Jarman induced a ground ball to second baseman Bryce Leslie that was not hit hard enough to turn the double play so the with one out now the Hurricanes had runners on the corners and the big bat of Terrents coming to the plate. Terrents cut the lead in half on a single back up the middle to score Pritchett but Jarman was determined to end Huntingtown’s reign in the 3A South and got two fly balls to end the game an secure the 2-1 win on the road.

Northern (Cal.) now awaits the winner of City College and Poly on Wednesday afternoon to see who they will face Friday for the 3A South Region Championship.