Baseball’s first report cards are out

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

The Montgomery County public-school baseball season is only two weeks old but with the onset of Spring Break, a brief pause will be taken by most of teams this week while many seniors head off for warmer climates.

Still others will continue to play a smattering of games here and there but many of those will be glorified scrimmages and will not count toward regional playoff seeding.

So just what has transpired during the first two weeks of the season and what is left to come? Here’s a quick glance.

Who’s hot

Wootton coach Joe Cassidy probably summed up the class of the county when he said, ‘‘Right now, Quince Orchard [is the team to beat because] they seem to have picked up right where they left off last year.”

The Cougars are off to a 8-0 record (heading into Tuesday’s game with Frederick County’s Linganore) behind the same formula that led them to the school’s first state title a year ago: steady fielding, solid pitching and a balanced offense.

That pitching staff consists largely of senior right-handers Andy Moldawer, Matt O’Keefe and Mike Celenza. Celenza and sophomore Kevin Johnson are two of the team’s top hitters as well.

‘‘Obviously, QO is the team to beat because no one has knocked them off yet,” Rockets coach Mike Willard said.

Staying close behind have been Gaithersburg (7-1), Wootton (5-2) and Sherwood (6-2), which should all be contenders, along with Quince Orchard, for the 4A West Region crown next month.

‘‘We are very fortune to be where we are,” said Gaithersburg coach Jason Woodward, whose squad lost to Quince Orchard in the regional final a year ago. ‘‘We have struggled at the plate, except for a few kids. [But] our pitching and defense have been a bright spot led by Nick Franceski, Rick Phillips and Kevin Brady.”

Phillips (.500, 10 RBI), Steve Delmar (.391, 11 RBI), Joey Dolim (.381) and Mike Lee (.409, 12 runs) have paced Gaithersburg offensively, while Franceski has produced a 3-1 record and a 1.75 earned-run average on the mound. Brady and Phillips have combined for the team’s other four wins.

Wootton shook off two early losses to Magruder (5-2) and Quince Orchard with four straight wins (through Monday), including a 20-9 blasting of Walter Johnson and a 15-3 shellacking of Blair last week.

‘‘We have been hitting the ball very well all year — 67 runs scored in seven games,” Cassidy said. ‘‘We gave up 29 to Quince Orchard and Magruder and 29 in the other five games so we are slowly improving.”

Leading the team’s offensive attack have been Sam Bender (.444, 16 RBI), Mike Campos (.464, 8 RBI), Dennis Schoonmaker (.571) and Cory Hatch (.444, 8 RBI). Peter Barrett has compiled a 4-0 record with a 0.75 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 12 innings. He’s also hit .423 with two home runs and eight RBI.

Making things even better for the Patriots is the return of All-Gazette first-team selection Bobby Kim, who sat out the first part of the season for what Cassidy termed as ‘‘personal reasons.”

‘‘We will see how he fits in,” Cassidy said. ‘‘I think it will be a good situation, but he is not going out there until his is ready to play. We have won four games in a row with the guys on the team. It is going to be a good thing to fit him in once he is ready. But he is not going to be thrown into the mix before I feel he is prepared.”

Bethesda-Chevy Chase, largely behind the play of the Richmond-bound Will Hanlon and an explosive offensive lineup, have dominated the county’s 3A⁄2A⁄1A Division with a 6-2 record and should capture the division championship barring any large hiccups.

Who’s not

Whitman opened the season as one of the teams to beat but it limped into the break with recent losses to Blake (14-4 score), Churchill (10-9) and Gaithersburg (3-1) for a 4-3 record.

‘‘We’re reeling a bit from injuries and sickness,” Vikings coach Jim Kuhn said. ‘‘Gabe [Feldman] is currently out with illness and Michael Lee is out due to injury. We have lost three of our last four and I believe that the break comes at a perfect time for us. We need to get healthy for the playoff run. I’m hopeful that once we have everyone back that we will play better. But that is yet to be seen.”

Feldman and Lee were batting .450 and .412, respectively, before going down. Feldman was also 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA and 17 strikeouts. Matt Kaler is the team’s top hitter with an average of .458 and 11 RBI, while Simon Weaver had recorded two wins on the mound.

Both Damascus (5-2) and Magruder (5-2) have struggled recently, as well, although like Whitman, they should still be considered contenders for division and regional titles.

The Swarmin’ Hornets dropped two of three games at one point before rallying to defeat Blake, 4-2, last Thursday. The losses were a 12-2 decision to Bethesda-Chevy Chase March 28 and a 5-2 setback to Quince Orchard last Tuesday.

The Colonels, who boast one of the county’s most potent offenses, won their first five games of the season but dropped back-to-back decisions to Richard Montgomery (10-2 score) and Northwest (15-12 score) before entering the break.

‘‘Dropping the last two games is a bit tough but the competition in our league is very good,” Magruder coach Bob Maxey said. ‘‘As they say, on any given day ... .”

Getting back on track shouldn’t be a problem with sluggers Ross Sweeney (.619, 15 RBI), Mitch Levine (.577, 6 RBI) and Matt Sweeney (.438, 2 home runs, 7 RBI, 13 walks) anchoring the team’s lineup and Brian Brusoe (2-0, 0.64 ERA) pacing the team’s pitching staff.

Blake (3-3) opened up its season with a trio of wins, including a 14-4 pounding of then unbeaten Whitman but followed with three straight losses to Quince Orchard (9-4 score), Springbrook (8-7) and Damascus (4-2) despite the proficient hitting of Matt Schrader (.579, 10 RBI), who is currently on a 15-game hitting streak that extends back to last year.

‘‘In our first three games, we batted .434,” Bengals co-coach Steve Murfin said. ‘‘We had five errors and our team ERA was 3.93. In our last three games, our batting average was .250. We had four errors and our ERA was 4.33. It isn’t hard to figure out what happened — our bats got cold.”

Unlike those teams, Blair (2-5) has been mostly down and not often up. The Blazers’ woes include a .254 team batting average and a total of 21 errors, 15 of which came in losses to Rockville (8-3 score) and Damascus (13-1 score).

Individually, Tommy Dugan has been building on last year’s stellar performance by compiling a .409 batting average with four doubles, eight runs scored and six stolen bases.

Besides B-CC, the rest of the 3A⁄2A⁄1A Division’s squads are all mired in losing seasons, including Poolesville (2-4), Paint Branch (3-6), Kennedy (1-4), Einstein (1-5), Seneca Valley (1-5), Wheaton (0-6) and Rockville, which dropped to 3-5 with Monday’s 4-0 loss to Springbrook. Watkins Mill (1-5) and Walter Johnson (1-6) have also struggled out of the gate.

Somewhere in between

Northwest (4-4), Springbrook (5-3) and Richard Montgomery (4-3) have been on roller-coaster rides with each team experiencing some promising success and disappointing failures.

The Jaguars have remained at the .500 mark through the play of John Brauch (2-0, 3.23 ERA), Garrett Hudler (.462) and Stas Speransky (.417, 2 home runs, 9 RBI) despite injuries to three starters, including Spencer Pearman, who is lost for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.

‘‘We’re battling through more injuries than I have ever been a part of before,” Northwest coach Matt Noble said.

Keith Hessler and Harold Brantley continue to guide the Blue Devils on the mound and at the plate, respectively. Hessler, a left-hander, was 3-0 with a sub-2.00 ERA and 41 strikeouts in 24 1⁄3 innings following his one-hit shutout of Rockville Monday. Brantley was batting .583 with five extra-base hits and seven RBI.

The Rockets have soared with wins of 10-2 over Magruder and fallen hard back to earth with a 24-3 setback to Damascus. They have gotten good play from Anthony Pace (.478, 7 RBI) and Addy Holmes (.473) and Aric Linkins (2-0, 2.69 ERA).

Churchill’s season so far has also been erratic, including a 10-9 win over Whitman and a 7-3 victory against Northwest, but losses of 13-12 to Blair and 16-13 to Bethesda-Chevy Chase.