Chad Blevins didn’t show much emotion through his praise. He wasn’t boastful. Not even the slightest bit excitable standing under glaring the spring sun, because he meant it.
“I don’t see a whole lot of weakness in our lineup,” the Havre de Grace baseball coach deadpanned.
Thus, climbing back from a two-run deficit and a slow start against one of the area’s toughest pitchers didn’t come as much of a surprise. The Warriors surged late to beat visiting Patterson Mill, 4-2.
Michael Hemelt’s seven-strikeout performance for the Huskies through four and a third innings –– “he was dealing,” Blevins said. “He was shutting us down.” –– came to a screeching halt in the bottom of the fifth.
Brady Walker doubled to score the first Warriors run, making it 2-1. Bryce Bauer drew a bases-loaded walk, scoring another. Then came Logan Ward.
He made clean contact with the second pitch he saw. A line of Havre de Grace parents rose from their foldable chairs in unison. They watched the ball Ward smacked sail through cloudless skies, seemingly forever. The flying white dot took a harsh nosedive smacking against the center field wall, scoring two more to give Havre de Grace (2-0) the lead it would take to the finish line.
“Our guys believe in one another,” Blevins said. “We’re pretty strong up and down the order. We put a hitter at the plate every at bat. I just feel like we’ve got a great chance every time we go up there.”
Havre de Grace got solid outings on the bump from Bauer and Dyllon Zachry-Nance. Bauer, a righty, allowed five hits with two runs over three and two-third innings, striking out four and walking another four. Zachry-Nance pitched three and one-third shutout innings, striking out five and walking two.
“If one guy doesn’t get it done, the next guy does,” Blevins said. “Bryce competed today even when he didn’t have his greatest stuff. But he kept the ballgame in reach at 2-0. Then we were able to bring Dyllon in and he had his good stuff, hold them at two and were able to score a few.”
Few coaches know their players as well as Blevins, who has managed much this group of now 12 seniors since T-ball. So he’s sincere, thus emotionless, when he says he feels confident in every name on the lineup card.
Even against a pitcher like Hemelt.
“We’re asking a lot of him early in the season,” Patterson Mill coach Matt Roseland said of his senior starting pitcher. “He pitched three innings the other day and was eligible to go today. Maybe we asked him to go one too many and they put the bat on the ball. But he gives us a chance to win every time he pitches.”
It was more of the same Monday night. It was the Huskies offense that couldn’t get the big hit and swing the game back in their favor.
Roseland admitted to putting a great burden on Hemelt at this juncture; two games into the season eyeing down what he the longtime coach called the “hardest [schedule] we have ever had.” Roseland knows they’ll need other guys to step up at that position.
On what excites Roseland about the prospects of this group moving forward, he said, “They’re more competitive than the groups we’ve had in the past. They compete in practice harder than the other groups. This is going to be a nice learning experience because everything we’re not doing is fixable. As long as they believe that, we’ll have a chance to be a tough out in May.”
Patterson Mill — 001 100 0 — 2 6 1
Havre de Grace — 000 040 0 — 4 7 1
WP: Dyllon Zachary-Nance. LP: Michael Hemelt
2B: HDG – Logan Ward, Wayne Hudson, Brady Walker.