Roosevelt scores 5 runs in the first to earn victory

By James A. McCray III
Prince George's County, Content Manager

Before the Eleanor Roosevelt players could get their normal chants out and before they could shout words of encouragement to lead-off batter Aaron Alston, the ball was already high in the air traveling high towards the left center-field fence.

Alston took one of the first pitches he saw in the top half of the first inning and laced it into the outfield for a lead-off triple, and in turn, got the bats rolling for Roosevelt as the Raiders opened up a 5-0 lead in the opening frame.

That would be all the cushion starting pitcher Chris Roy and Roosevelt head coach Andrew Capece would need as the Raiders went on to a 10-1 victory over the C.H. Flowers Jaguars on Tuesday afternoon.

"Aaron has been doing that," Capece said. "He has been leading off games by getting on base for us which is big."

A balk call on Flowers starting pitcher Christian Holmes scored Alston from third for the first score of the game.

However, the biggest blow came from the bat of Mitch Kempisty as his 2-RBI single increased the lead to 4-0.

"Everybody gets out here, everybody plays hard, and everybody gets hits, and then you know hits are contagious," Kempisty said. " ... I had a good game today compared to how I have been."

Alston finished the game going 4 for 5 with 2 RBIs and Kempisty finished 3 for 4 with 3 RBIs to lead the Raiders' offense.

As the bats did the job at the plate for Roosevelt (3-0) Roy did the job from the mound with a complete-game, four-hit, seven strikeout performance to earn the win.

Aside from an inside-the-park-home run given up by Roy, the senior pitcher gave up only three singles throughout the contest.

"The first inning, I came off a little shaky, the control wasn't there," Roy admitted. " ... After that, I went on the side and fixed my mechanics, and then I came out and felt a little more confident throwing strikes and not walking anybody."

"He did a great job," Capece said of Roy, "but I don't think he had his best stuff today. He kept coming over after the first couple of innings trying to go on the side. ... But, he was good enough and we made enough plays to keep them off of the bases."

Malik Clark was able to score Flowers' only run of the game with his home run in the fourth inning, however, the Jaguars gave up a few bases on fielding errors which aided in the loss.

" ... We definitely can play better defensively," Flowers head coach Robert Herring said. "We pride ourselves on working on fundamentals and making the routine play. There were a couple of ground-ball routine plays that we did not make. We preach to our kids that you can't give four outs and win baseball games."

As far as the hitting woes on the day, Herring added: "Personally, I do think that they hit the ball better than what we did today because we have hit the ball better than that in the past."

Roosevelt's Jamie Morris had 2 RBIs in the game with a sacrifice RBI in the fourth and a RBI single in the seventh as Cameron Sanders and Kevin Halpert each batted in a run, respectively.

"I have been talking about Flowers for three weeks to them," Capece said. "I have been telling them that this is [Flowers'] year and they are one of the best teams in the league. So, they were ready today."

E-mail: James A. McCray III

Eleanor Roosevelt 10, C.H. Flowers 1
Roosevelt   --   5 1 0   1 0 2   1  -- 10 13 1
Flowers      --   0 0 0   1 0 0   0  -- 1   4   3
WP: Roy   LP: Holmes
2B: ER (Halpert)   3B: ER (Alston, Kempisty)   HR: CHF (Clark)

*Game note* Tuesday's game was played AT Eleanor Roosevelt, however, Flowers was the designated home team as it was originally scheduled to be at Flowers.