By Andy States
SMAC Content Manager
In its brief, three-year history as a varsity program, North Point's baseball team had never played a doubleheader prior to Saturday.
After defeating Saint Vincent Pallotti 8-4 in its first game, Eagles coach Bill Chichester wasn't exactly sure how his club was going to respond in the afternoon's second game against the Great Mills Hornets, a make-up from a postponed game during the week. But after a sluggish couple of innings to start, North Point charged back to take a 9-2 decision in a game that featured a combined no-hitter from Keith Ryan and Tony Raza-Montes.
"First couple innings it didn't look very good," Chichester said. "Defensively we didn't look very good. Pitching didn't seem to be focused. Then the third inning they regrouped."
North Point (8-2, 7-2) scored seven runs in the top of the third -- the game was played at North Point but Great Mills was the home team in the rescheduled affair -- to overcome an early 2-0 deficit. All seven runs came after Great Mills (4-4, 3-4) had recorded two outs.
Brent Poullard, who reached on a error to lead off the inning, scored on Aaron Felton's RBI single to slice the deficit to 2-1. That was just the beginning. Trey Simmons and Taylor Griffin followed with singles, and after another Great Mills error stretched the inning on Tre' Harding drilled a two-run double to the fence in right-center to clear the bases and push across the Eagles' fifth and sixth runs of the inning. Simmons scored on another error later in the inning to increase the North Point lead to 7-2, which was more than enough support for Ryan.
Ryan opened the game by walking Great Mills' J.T. Mattingly and struggled a bit with his control through the first two innings. Ryan walked three, hit a batter and hurt himself with two errant pickoff throws as the Hornets built the early lead. But the senior pitcher settled down, facing just the minimum number of batters between the third and sixth innings.
Ryan did not allow a hit in six innings of work, struck out three and picked off three. Raza-Montes worked a perfect seventh inning to nail down the win and the combined no-hitter.
"Started off kind of slow, actually. Walked a lot of people, which I don't usually do," Ryan said. "But I got the 'D' behind me. That brought me back in and we scored seven runs in the third inning."
Great Mills brought in ace Carlos Cruz, who the Eagles had expected to see from the start, in the fifth inning but North Point continued to hit. The Eagles produced six more hits over the final three innings and added two more runs.
"After they took a breath they woke up and played their baseball," Chichester said of his team. "They played good defense and Keith settled down and pitched well. He pitched well, but he just wasn't focused the first few innings."
In all, North Point banged out 13 hits. Poullard, Simmons and Harding each collected three hits. Simmons was 3 for 3 with two runs scored and an RBI, while Harding was 3 for 4 with two runs scored and two driven in. Griffin was 2 for 4 and drove in three runs.
"Our offense came through and Keith pitched a great game, had a no-hitter," said Poullard, who also had two hits in the team's early game against Pallotti. "Great Mills gave us some errors in the third inning, scored seven runs, but I think our offense came through really good and our defense stepped up."
Great Mills is scheduled to play at Calvert on Monday, while North Point is slated to host Leonardtown.
As the regular season heads towards the stretch run, North Point sits in the conference's upper tier with two losses. The Eagles lost to Thomas Stone and suffered a heartbreaking 4-3 loss to Huntingtown in which the Eagles surrendered a three-run lead in the final inning. The Eagles could conceivably be in the mix for the SMAC title, but do not control their own destiny in that regard.
"We just have to take care of business for ourselves," Chichester said.
North Point 9, Great Mills 2
N 0 0 7 0 0 1 1 - 9 13 3
G 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 - 2 0 4
WP: Ryan, LP Brown
2B - Harding (N), Simmons
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