Trinity Collegiate baseball in whitewash
By Don Gearhart
The first inning of the Camden Military Academy Spartans and Trinity Collegiate Titans started out like a pitching battle as each side was retired in order. In the top of the second inning all that changed. CMA, with one out, had their only two hits of the game. Trinity Collegiate’s Hunter White recovered, though, retiring the next two batters to end any threat. Dalton Moody led off the bottom half of the second with a line single to left.
Kam Rheuark’s grounder to short was bobbled allowing Moody to reach second base and Rheuark safe at first. Nicholas Romanoli’s attempt to sacrifice bunt the runners up turned into a base hit. With the bases loaded, White delivered a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Moody with the first run. Buck’s fielder’s choice drove in Rheuark to make the score 2-0 in favor of the Titans.
In the third inning, the Titans mounted another attack. Cameron Jordan was safe when his grounder to third was muffed.
Jordan stole both second and third base and looked to be stranded there when the next two batter’s flied out. A throwing error by the catcher enabled Jordan to score. Then the roof fell in for CMA.
Moody garnered his second hit, this one a hard liner up the middle. He stole two bases to end up at third ahead of a walk to Rheuark who then promptly stole second base. Romanoli followed with a gap shot double to drive home both Moody and Rheuark. A passed ball moved Romanoli to third and he score two pitches later on a wild pitch. White walked and a stolen base later, he scored on Buck’s base hit. At the end of three innings, the Titans commanded a 7-0 lead.
The bottom of the fourth was nearly a duplicate of the third inning for Trinity. After Jordan grounded out to first base, Max Faile walked and stole second ahead of Tanner Hall’s base hit. Faile scored on a wild pitch, then Moody’s long fly ball to deep left was dropped allowing Hall to cross the plate. Rheuark was hit by a pitch and stole second. Moody scored when a pickoff attempt went wide of the mark, then Rheuark scored when White had a base hit making the score 11-0. CMA got only their third runner on the basepaths in the top of the fifth on a base on balls. With two outs, Dewsey Meadows came on in relief of White. He struck out the only batter he faced to end the game that was shortened via the 10-run rule.
Moody and Rheuark each scored three times for the Titans. Romanoli, with a double and single and Moody with a pair of singles collected four of the Titans seven hits. They were aided by three walks, a hit batsman and four CMA errors. Romanoli, White, and Buck each drove in two runs.
White was the winning pitcher striking out six, walking one, and giving up just two hits.