Announcement
On a cold and windy day at the beautiful Linthicum-Ferndale baseball complex, the 8U Hustlers came up on the short end of a close game. Cody Smith was brilliant once again on the mound pitching the first two innings and only allowing one run (unearned). He had three strikeouts and was helped out by two beautiful plays from Evin Kloster. Down 1-0 entering the third with two outs, Kloster stepped to the plate and launched a missile to straight away center that hit off the top of the fence for a standup triple. “Evin hit that ball about as well as you’ll see any 8 year-old,” noted Coach Main. Smith brought Kloster home with a single to the right side as the Hustlers evened the game at one. Carter Jackson entered the third inning on the mound and was dealing aces. He struck out two LF hitters and caught a pop out for the third out. It looked like momentum was changing hands but the young Hustlers just couldn’t get anything going offensively. Jackson went back out in the fourth and struck and two of the first three hitters before suddenly running into control issues. Before the inning was over the Archers had scored three runs on only one hit. Kloster pitched the fifth and gave up one run. He struck out one and was the recipient of a nice fielding play from Clay Hamilton. “That’s a really nice team we played and our guys hung in there. We just seemed to have a little more trouble adjusting to the cold,” Main said. RJ Dermady, Kai Akins and Cody Smith shared the catching duties and all three were solid.
The young Hustlers are back in action on Wednesday at Yellow Springs against the Elkridge Hurricanes. First pitch is scheduled for 5:45pm.
Note: Matt Cunningham (Linganore), Dustin Isanogle (Catoctin) and Colby Patterson (Our Lady of Good Counsel) assisted Coach Patterson and Coach Main with the coaching duties on their off day from High School baseball. All are 9th graders and members of the 14U Hustlers. "It's 45 degrees and the winds blowing 20mph and these guys are running around in full uniform like their 8U counterparts. We preach baseball has to be fun; this was fun!"
