McMakin leads Sherwood at plate and on mound

By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.com

Sherwood senior Erin McMakin doesn’t show much emotion. Her stock response to Coach Pat Flannagan when asked just about anything is, “I’m good, Coach.”

But when McMakin smacked a two-run homer in the first inning Monday against Blake, the first ever at Sherwood according to Flannagan, she finally got a little excited.

The home run propelled Sherwood to a 3-0 win over Blake and sealed the 4A East division title.

“I was kind of like, ‘Yes, I hit it!’” McMakin said. “As I was watching it I was like, ‘That’s going a lot farther than I thought it was going to.’ And it went over the fence and it was really exciting.”

McMakin’s home run soared out to right center field. It came after senior teammate Taylor Stockinger tripled to deep left field with two outs.

“It didn’t just trickle over,” Flannagan said of the home run.

That was all the offense McMakin would need as she did the rest of the work from the mound with her eighth shutout in 11 games. She struck out five batters and allowed just four hits and none over the final three innings, lowering her ERA from the 0.22 she had entering the day.

McMakin, who played her first two years on junior varsity while the more outgoing Dana Ward dominated Montgomery County before heading to Shippensburg, has six pitches in her arsenal. There’s a fastball, changeup, rise ball, curveball, screw ball and knuckleball. She added the screw ball and rise ball this season.

“I challenge a man to try to hit those,” Flannagan joked.

But perhaps McMakin’s greatest asset on the mound is her cool demeanor. Even with a couple runners on base, as Blake had in the first inning, McMakin doesn’t show her nerves. She doesn’t get angry if a play isn’t made behind her.

Flannagan feels that when a pitcher shows her emotions it can bring her teammates down around her.

“I’ve never had a kid like this with the temperament she has,” Flannagan said. “She’s so suited for the position.”

Blake (8-4) has now dropped three straight games after winning eight of its first nine. The Bengals got a solid pitching performance from Meredith Mathis but the big first inning was too much to overcome.

Sherwood (10-1) rebounded from its first loss of the season against Damascus on Friday with quality wins over Wootton and now Blake, who gave the Warriors their closest win of the season back on March 25 by a score of 3-1.

“It hurt bad,” Stockinger said of the Damascus loss. “I know I wanted to go undefeated. We worked really hard to do that. … We came back strong and the two wins helped us a lot.”