In the latter stages of Northern’s season opener against Great Mills, Patriots baseball coach Carl Smith tried to get one of his outfielders to move over a few steps. Smith told his player to move left, and then told him to move to his left. Though he tried to get his outfielder to move left, Northern did everything right on its way to a 7-1 non-conference win over visiting Great Mills on Friday afternoon.
Northern (1-0) banged out 12 hits, four of them for extra bases, while three pitchers — starter Eric Gronbeck, Cory Walburn and Timmy Hull — held the Hornets to just one hit. The trio also combined to strike out 11.

‘‘It’s big when you win to start off the season,” Smith said. ‘‘Offensively, you like to see that [hitting] and we think we hit like that because we have more depth. I think we’re pretty solid throughout the lineup.”

Great Mills coach Steve Wolfe said he was pleased with his team’s performance.

‘‘Our kids played hard the whole game,” Wolfe said. ‘‘There wasn’t any rolling over [by my kids] and considering that we got rained out of one scrimmage and had a patchwork lineup out here, I thought we did a pretty good job. It’s an early season non-conference game and we were just looking to see what the kids were going to do and I thought they played pretty good.”

Gronbeck went four innings and allowed a run on one hit. He also walked four and struck out three.

‘‘I felt pretty good out there,” said Gronbeck, who was pulled after he reached his 60-pitch limit. ‘‘I was just trying to work my fastball and work off that. I was also throwing my curve and a few changeups, though not as many as I usually do. It was a good way to start off the season.” ‘‘He didn’t throw a lot of innings last year as a sophomore because we had so many pitchers,” Smith said of his No. 3 pitcher. ‘‘But he’s made improvements and worked hard and I think he’ll improve throughout the year. He wasn’t his sharpest but he was sharper than he has been.”

Walburn and Hull threw the final three innings and combined to strike out eight while surrendering a walk. The duo also fanned 7 of 9 late in the game.

‘‘I was throwing fastballs but I mixed in curves and changeups here and there,” said Walburn, who struck out two of the first three hitters he faced. ‘‘I like to keep [hitters] off balance so they don’t know what’s coming.”

‘‘Those are our Nos. 1 and 2 pitchers,” Smith said of Hull and Walburn, respectively. ‘‘We have high hopes and high expectations for them. They’ve each gotten bigger and stronger and hopefully they’ll continue to throw that way throughout the year and if they do, we’ll be competitive.”

Great Mills (0-1) started its No. 3 pitcher, Matt Jackson. Jackson allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk over four innings. Josh Trossbach and Matthew Brown tossed one and two innings, respectively.

‘‘Calvin did a good job but we were hoping he’d be able to go one more inning than he did,” Wolfe said. ‘‘But he kept the ball down and did pretty much what we wanted him to do. When your [starting] pitcher keeps you within one or two runs, that’s a quality start. That’s what we wanted him to do.”

Northern set the tone defensively in the top of the first inning. With one out, William Smith reached on an infield hit, the Hornets’ only hit of the game, and Alex Mancil hit a sinking line drive to left. Outfielder Jake Springer made a sliding backhand catch and gunned the ball to infielder Jake Orlandi, who threw to first to get Smith.

‘‘I saw it pretty good off the bat and even though it was a line drive, I knew I would have time to get it even though it was a bit of a risk,” Springer said. ‘‘I knew that if I missed it, I’d be able to get it [back in] fast enough. It felt real good to make a play like that.”

Northern set the offensive tone in the bottom of the inning when Patrick Morrow clubbed an RBI double and Walburn singled in the second run of the inning.

‘‘We made a nice defensive play,” Gronbeck said, ‘‘and then we scored a few runs that gave me a lot of confidence.”

‘‘The thing that hurt [Jackson] was that he threw a lot of pitches in the first inning,” Wolfe said.

Great Mills pushed across its only run of the game in the top of the third when it earned four walks, the last one forcing in Saxon Simpson. With the bases still loaded and one out, the Hornets had a chance to pull even but Mancil popped out and Jackson looked at a third strike.

‘‘My arm slot needed to be higher,” Gronbeck said of the walks. ‘‘I wasn’t getting it high enough. I had a rough inning but I was able to get through it.”

Northern reestablished its two-run lead in the bottom of the frame when Nick Soloducha lashed a two-out, run-scoring single.

‘‘It was important to put one on the board there that gave us our two-run lead back,” Smith said. ‘‘This team has a lot of character and showed that they’re going to scrap.”

Northern put the game away with a three-run fifth and added its final run of the game on Walburn’s RBI double in the sixth.

‘‘He threw me a fastball right down the middle,” Walburn said, ‘‘and I was able to hit it good enough so that it hit the gap.”

‘‘We hit the ball solidly throughout the whole game,” Smith said, ‘‘and we were able to blow it open in the later innings.”

Wolfe added, ‘‘Until that inning it was 3-1 and still anybody’s game.”

Northern’s run through the 3A South regional playoffs began with Monday’s 2-1 win over visiting Lackey, but Northern suffered a serious blow to its future postseason aspirations when starting pitcher Adam Hoyt suffered a head injury.
If the Patriots are hoping to move along in the playoffs, they will have to do so without Hoyt, who was struck next to his left eye by a line drive in the fourth inning.

Second-seeded Northern (16-5) hosts the winner of the Great Mills-Westlake game at 4 p.m. today.

‘‘We played as well as we’re capable of,” Northern coach Carl Smith said, ‘‘but we made some mistakes against a good team.”

Smith was also frustrated by the fact that the Patriots were forced to play a decent Lackey team while other, higher-ranked teams faced softer schedules. ‘‘It’s just disappointing the state doesn’t reward people for having a good season,” Smith said. ‘‘It’s absolutely disappointing this time of year to play someone of [Lackey’s] caliber when other teams in our region are playing teams that can’t even compete with them. ‘‘We win SMAC again for the third time in four years and we draw a good SMAC team. If we win [a state championship], it would be kind of a fluke because we have to play three tough games when others might play one or two [tough games]. I’m bitter about it because it’s just not fair to the kids who work hard.”Seventh-seeded Lackey (7-13), which knocked off Chopticon, 7-5, on Saturday in the first round, held the Patriots to just two runs on five hits.

‘‘They’re the SMAC champs,” Lackey coach Matt Loyd said, ‘‘but we threw everything at them. It’s unfortunate that we just came out on the wrong end but they have a solid ball team over there.”

Northern opened the scoring in the bottom of the third inning. Colin Brown led off with an infield hit and the speedster prompted several throws from Chargers starter Zach O’Dell. Aaron Orlandi attempted to bunt Brown to second but popped out to catcher Daniel Conover. Jake Orlandi, Northern’s No. 9 batter, then smashed the first offering from O’Dell to right-center field to score Brown.

‘‘I noticed that during warm-ups he was throwing a lot of curveballs but a lot of first-pitch fastballs and [a fastball] is what he ended up throwing me,” Jake Orlandi said. ‘‘I think [having Colin on base] it might have helped because Colin has a lot of speed out on the bases so maybe [O’Dell] was worried about him.”

Orlandi tried to score on Jordan Shaefer’s bunt but was tagged out on the fielder’s choice. The Patriots led 1-0.

Northern added to its lead in the fourth when Hoyt’s replacement in the batting order, Corey Walburn, lined a one-out single, went to second on Pat Morrow’s groundout and scored on Eric Gronbeck’s RBI single down the first base line.

The Patriots put the leadoff batter on in the fifth inning but again failed to bunt the runner into scoring position.

‘‘We’re not going to win if they keep doing that, it’s as simple as that,” Smith said. ‘‘We told them, ‘We’re capable of beating anybody and we’re capable of losing to anybody,’ and it seems like some days they listen to you and get it done and others they just don’t focus and don’t get it done. If we [fail to bunt runners over] on Wednesday we’ll lose and if we win Wednesday and do that Friday, we’ll lose Friday.”

Lackey pushed across a run in the sixth inning to pull to within one. Josh Regalia led off with a walk, went to second when Conover was issued a base on balls, went to second on Wesley Poynter’s groundout and scored on Warren Sellers’ single to right.

Lackey had an opportunity to make a big inning out of it but Poynter’s groundout resulted in a double play when second baseman Jake Orlandi tagged out Conover and threw to first to get Poynter.

‘‘They’re obviously going to be huge to us,” Smith said of defensive plays. ‘‘When you only score two runs you need to play well defensively and we certainly did that.”

Northern reliever Logan Coker extinguished any would-be rallies in the top of the seventh when he got Kyle Beckett to ground out and fanned both O’Dell and Bradley Fowler to end the game.

‘‘We were right where we wanted to be, only one run down in the seventh against them,” Loyd said. ‘‘Yeah, I would have been happy [if he had been told beforehand] but we wanted to win the ballgame.”

Hoyt allowed two hits, both singles, and struck out five in 3 2/3 innings of work. After his injury, Timmy Hull came on in relief and allowed a run on one hit in 2 1/3 innings. He struck out four and walked three.

‘‘I was pretty confident because I’d pitched against them before,” Hull said. ‘‘My fastball was a little outside but my curveball was working pretty well and I was able to get them over for strikes and keep them off balance.”

‘‘We had a bunch of options early in the week as to who to start and how we were going to work our rotation and we had to go with Adam [today] because we got a tough draw,” Smith said. ‘‘We knew that we were going to use Timmy but we didn’t know when and unfortunately we had to use him earlier than we wanted.

‘‘But he did an excellent job and you have to give him credit. We put him in that situation in a tight ballgame and he held us in there so we could win it.”

Loyd said he was pleased with his team’s performance over the course of the season.

‘‘We’re a very young team,” Loyd said. ‘‘We started four sophomores so we knew that as the season progressed that we would get better and it showed in these last two playoff games."

Neither of them may win the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference title, but Patuxent and Northern's baseball teams might be the last SMAC teams standing come the postseason, thanks to the scarcest resource in high school baseball -- pitching.

In Northern's 2-0 home victory over the Panthers on Thursday, both teams showed they have quality and a quantity of arms to go deep in the playoffs. While Northern ace left-hander Adam Hoyt looked terrific in a complete-game five-hitter with nine strikeouts, Patuxent's No. 2 arm, senior right-hander Kurt Bruce, hit the corners well and kept the Panthers in the game. The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association will reveal the regional playoff draw on Tuesday.
Northern, which lost in the 3A South final last year, is seeking its first regional title since 1992, while Patuxent moves from 4A East down to 2A South this season, and away from many of the tough opponents of Anne Arundel County.

"Our recipe is pretty easy," Northern Coach Carl Smith said. "We have to pitch in order to win, and we have two people to do that."

Both Hoyt and Bruce have plenty of company in their respective dugouts to keep them motivated. Behind the senior Hoyt are juniors Logan Coker, Timmy Hull and Corey Walburn, along with sophomore Eric Gronbeck. The quintet has combined for a team earned run average below 2.00.

Meantime, sandwiching Bruce in the rotation are two of the few veterans on the Patuxent roster. Senior left-hander Kyle Starr is the SMAC's hardest thrower, topping out in the low 90s, while senior Josh Fritch is good enough to be a No. 1 or 2 pitcher on some teams.

Even though the regional tournaments last only a week, teams have to win three games in five days to claim a spot in the state showcase.

State rules limit pitchers to 14 innings over a seven-day span, and 10 over three days. Two good pitchers won't be enough to get through this tournament; most staffs are stretched thin, and teams often probe the depths of their bullpens to find capable arms in the biggest games of the season.

Right now, though, what could keep both teams from winning the SMAC -- and what could be their downfall in the postseason -- has been hitting. Between Bruce, Starr and Fritch, Patuxent's lineup in spots 2-3-4 is one of the most powerful in the conference. They need a little support, but usually when Patuxent allows only two runs, that's enough to win.

The Panthers' struggles began at the most unexpected moment. Since scoring four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning April 24 to beat Thomas Stone, 9-8, Patuxent has lost five in a row.

"That was the game I thought would give us the spark," Panthers Coach Keith Powell said, "but it hasn't."

Northern, meantime, has been very inconsistent with its bats, hitting just over .250 with runners in scoring position. If the Patriots keep leaning on their pitchers to carry them, it's possible they might overburden them.

"This is the best chance we're going to have in a long time," Smith said. "We need to play good defense to support it, because we haven't been hitting."

Adam Hoyt is a little confused about how good he needs to be.

Does the Northern senior left-hander feel he has to be flawless, knowing his teammates struggle to give him run support?

Or does he relax, knowing that even if he doesn't have his best stuff, there are four more arms on the Patriots' bench that disprove the notion that high school teams don't have enough pitching?

"I don't really know," Hoyt said. "I don't think I feel any pressure, but we definitely have enough pitching for the playoffs."

If the Patriots follow Hoyt's lead, they should be in excellent shape for the postseason.

‘Yesterday, Hoyt threw a complete-game five-hitter with nine strikeouts as Northern defeated visiting Patuxent, 2-0, in a Southern Maryland Athletic Conference game. It was an important victory for Northern, which fell out of a first-place tie with Thomas Stone on Wednesday after a 5-4 loss to McDonough. But even if Northern cannot make up the deficit to claim its third SMAC title in four seasons, the Patriots will take solace in their pitching staff, which is well suited for a strong postseason run.

Along with Hoyt, the Patriots (14-5 overall, 11-4 SMAC) tout four other capable arms -- juniors Logan Coker, Timmy Hull and Cory Walburn, and sophomore Eric Gronbeck -- who have led the staff to a combined 1.98 ERA and have allowed opponents to bat only .257 heading into yesterday's game. Northern doesn't have to worry about stretching one or two pitchers too thin when there are three regional playoff games in five days.

Hoyt, a Radford signee, lowered those numbers with his terrific outing. He is 4-2 on the season, allowing only five earned runs (six overall) in 37 innings with 47 strikeouts and just nine walks. His fastball was still reaching the mid-to-upper 80s in the seventh inning. Only two Panthers reached second base, and junior catcher Nick Sydnor picked off both.

"Against a pitcher like Hoyt, you can't make mistakes on the bases," said Patuxent Coach Keith Powell, whose team lost its fifth straight after winning eight of its first 10 SMAC games. "It makes [Patuxent starter Kurt Bruce] feel like he has to strike everybody out."

Bruce was strong himself, scattering 10 hits. Northern scored once in the third inning on a misplayed fly ball, and again in the fifth on a double-play groundout.

Northern 2, Patuxent 0 In Control: Northern left-hander Adam Hoyt threw 55 of his 86 pitches for strikes, and first-pitch strikes to 16 of 25 batters. No Runs for You: This was the 13th time in 19 games this season that Northern pitchers have held opponents to three runs or less.

Northern’s Nick Soloducha has heard people butcher his name repeatedly in the past but if he keeps churning out big hits like the one he had Saturday that helped Northern to a 7-6, eight-inning win over visiting Patuxent, at least people will get a chance to practice his surname.
The win allowed Northern (8-3) to win the Northern Baseball Tournament. The Patriots earned their berth in the title game with a 7-1 win over Calvert earlier in the day while Patuxent claimed its place in the championship game with a 5-4 victory over host Huntingtown.

‘‘Of course you’re trying to win but at the same time you’re trying to develop your players and give some players who might not get a chance to play during the regular season a chance,” Northern coach Carl Smith said. ‘‘It’s exciting because some kids don’t normally get a chance to play against some pretty good teams and this was big because we got everybody a chance to play.”

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Soloducha (pronounced SOUL-owe-DUKE-uh) kick started Northern’s game-winning rally when he slammed Kyle Starr’s two-out offering to the gap in left-center field for a double. ‘‘There’s quite a few but Sulladoocha is one of the main ones I hear,” said Soloducha, who is known simply as Duke by his teammates. ‘‘He threw me an outside pitch and then he came inside and I knew I needed to put it in play so I just drove the ball and put it in play.”

Jordan Schaefer followed with a walk and Eric Gronbeck banged an 0-2 pitch to right to score Soloducha and complete the two-out rally.

‘‘I knew he was throwing hard so I just tried to put it in play,” Gronbeck said of Starr, whom he plays American Legion baseball with. ‘‘It’s a great feeling and it also gives me bragging rights.”

‘‘He was up against one of the best pitchers in the conference and he got a base hit that won us the game,” Smith said. ‘‘It was a good pitcher against a good hitter.”

While Soloducha was involved in the game’s defining play, he was also involved in its most controversial play, in the fifth.

Northern trailed 5-2 after Patuxent (8-4) pushed across five runs in the top of the fourth. The Patriots closed the gap with a run in the bottom of the inning.

In the Northern fifth, Soloducha’s one-out RBI double cut the Panthers’ lead to 5-4. The junior went to third on Jordan Schaefer’s single and broke for home when Gronbeck bounced a ball to second. After the throw went to the plate to try to get Soloducha, the Northern base runner collided with Patuxent catcher Eric Peterson and the ball popped loose, scoring Soloducha with the tying run.

‘‘I saw him come up and throw down to second because the hit-and-run was on so I dropped my head and started sprinting home,” Soloducha said. ‘‘I didn’t feel like I needed to slide but [Peterson] came down with the ball and I got my foot on the plate. It was just one of those things but I didn’t try to injure him and I certainly won’t do it again.”

‘‘It was really a bang-bang play,” Smith said, ‘‘but the rule is you’re supposed to avoid contact. He can’t plow into him like that. We got a break there.”

‘‘You cannot run into a catcher and he should have been out,” Patuxent coach Keith Powell said. ‘‘It wasn’t malicious and he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody but that’s the rule. I don’t know what the umpire was saying when he said, ‘You don’t have to slide.’ I don’t like to blame umpires, I really don’t, but they call that kid out and [the game] doesn’t go extra innings and we win.”

Patuxent regained the lead in the sixth when Chris Brock reached on an infield hit, went to second and third on passed balls and scored on Starr’s groundout.

But the Patriots tied the game once again on another two-out rally. Tim Hull reached on an infield hit, went to third on Colin Brown’s double and scored on Soloducha’s bases-loaded walk.

Northern pitcher Adam Hoyt threw the final four innings and allowed three hits, all singles. He also struck out four.

‘‘I knew we had the bats,” said Hoyt, who retired eight of the last nine batters he faced, ‘‘so I just tried to shut them down.”

‘‘Northern’s always good,” Powell said, ‘‘and they came back, but I’m happy with how we played.”

Northern jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on Gronbeck’s RBI single and Patrick Morrow’s fielder’s choice.

But the Panthers rallied in the fourth when they sent nine batters to the plate and scored five runs. Starr’s two-run double down the right field line and Brock’s single that scored two more runs were the big hits of the inning.

‘‘We hit the ball and that’s big against Hull and Hoyt,” Powell said.

Powell said he thinks the Panthers, who have won six of their last eight, need to play well in a tough home stretch. Patuxent returns to action Thursday against Old Mill and plays six of its last eight games on the road.

‘‘We’ve played well but we have a tough schedule coming up,” Powell said. ‘‘I don’t think we’ve peaked yet; I don’t think we’re playing our best yet.”

Another lazy American Legion game had just ended, and Adam Hoyt was walking off the field at Quince Orchard last July. In the middle of a conversation with his teammates, Hoyt picked his head up and noticed a strange man talking to his parents by the dugout.

Hoyt packed up his equipment, and as he approached his parents, Katie and Mike, they were wearing beaming smiles as they flanked the man. Now, Hoyt was really confused.

Northern left-hander Adam Hoyt hopes to lead the pitching-rich Patriots to another SMAC title before moving on to Radford in the fall. (By Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)

Before Hoyt could greet his parents, the man stepped forward and introduced himself. Ryan Brittle, an assistant coach at Radford, had just watched Hoyt pitch that night and was very impressed.

‘‘I knew he was throwing hard so I just tried to put it in play,” Gronbeck said of Starr, whom he plays American Legion baseball with. ‘‘It’s a great feeling and it also gives me bragging rights.”"He told me he definitely thought I was a Division I player," said Hoyt, who had no idea Brittle was coming to watch him that night. "It was kind of unbelievable. I didn't think I was that good."

Hoyt accepted Brittle's invitation to visit the southern Virginia campus and, last November, signed to pitch for the Highlanders next season.

As he tries to help Northern defend its Southern Maryland Athletic Conference title this season, Hoyt is still a little surprised by his achievements.

"I just figured I had a good year," Hoyt said of his 2005 season. "I knew [winning the SMAC title] was more of a team thing than anything I did."

‘Hoyt might wish to take another look at his statistics from last season. After transferring from Calvert, the six-foot left-hander went 4-3 with a 0.99 earned run average, as the Patriots lost to eventual state champion Severna Park in the Maryland 3A South final. He struck out 62 and allowed only 31 hits in 49 1/3 innings. Hoyt also batted .383 and showed his knack for producing in the clutch: He hit .522 with runners in scoring position.

Hoyt sits atop the strongest, deepest and most experienced pitching staff in the SMAC, which, not coincidentally, was the backbone of Northern's success last season.

Hoyt, senior Timmy Hull and junior Logan Coker combined to earn 14 of Northern's 15 victories last season and a 1.63 ERA, and held opponents to a .185 batting average.

"That's why they're winning: pitching," Patuxent Coach Keith Powell said, "and Hoyt's one of the best.

"When hitters know they only need to score a couple of runs a game, it relaxes them."

Maybe that's why Hoyt never thought much of his accomplishments last season -- he never felt the pressure to carry Northern with his arm. As the Patriots won seven games by one or two runs, it was easy to look at the dramatic hit that provided the winning margin. But that could overshadow the clutch pitching that allowed Northern to escape narrowly time after time.

Hoyt seems to have fallen for that line of thinking and not given himself enough credit for his mid-to-upper-80s fastball, sharp curve and ease at changing speeds. And as a left-hander, he is more desirable to scouts.

"He realizes he has some talent," Northern Coach Carl Smith said, "but he doesn't realize how talented he is. If you'd told him that ahead of time [that he would sign to play Division I baseball], he'd have said, 'Yeah, that's cool.' "

If getting the chance to pitch in college startled Hoyt, another viable future option might really overwhelm him. Scouts have their eyes on Hoyt and might call his name in the Major League Baseball draft in June.

"If that ever happened, it would definitely surprise him," Smith said. "I don't think he has aspirations of that, but it would be nice. I'm sure he'd be like, 'Wow, that's cool.' "

Don't underestimate Hoyt. Just a year ago, he didn't think he would be headed for a college scholarship, and look what happened.