Malvern Prep outlasts WC Henderson
MALVERN>> Nonleague baseball games are usually a time where coaches can play their whole roster and get an idea of how deep a team they are. Saturday afternoon at Malvern Prep, West Chester Henderson coach Luke McNichol used four pitchers and many players who have not gotten much playing time during the Ches-Mont League early season play.
The visiting Warriors made a good showing as they battled arguably the top team in Southeastern Pennsylvania in Malvern Prep, for the entire seven innings before falling to the host Friars 8-5.
Malvern Prep (10-1) received a stellar four inning starting pitching performance from junior Tague Davis, a Louisville university commit, who allowed the Warriors (3-4) just two hits while striking out four batters until he departed the mound in the fifth inning with the Friars up 6-0 at the time.
“Tague was really good for us today,” Malvern Prep coach Fred Hilliard said. “He filled up the strike zone and he threw all his pitches and gave our offense a chance to get going and we did that in the fourth inning. It was good to see a performance like that with our league schedule starting on Tuesday.”
Malvern Prep had a 1-0 lead after three innings but the Friars broke the game open in the bottom of the fourth. against Henderson reliever Nick Cugino.
The Friars sent nine men to the plate in the fourth inning with big hits coming from Mason Clark, who roped a double and Jackson Simko. The Warriors helped the Friars by committing two big errors that added up to runs for the Friars.
“We had to limit our pitchers innings because we have three league games this week,” Warriors coach Luke McNichol said. “And we had some people in different roles and a lot of these guys were playing JV last year and varsity is a big step up for them. And I thought we battled one of the premier programs in Malvern very well and our inexperience hurt us a little today.”
Davis left in the top of the fifth inning with the Warriors posing their first threat of the game. Cam Marcum came in to pitch for the Friars and he was greeted by a big two run single from Brady Campbell and the Warriors were right back in the game, trailing 6-3 after the top of the fifth inning.
But, the Friars were not done scoring. Clark stroked another double in the bottom of the fifth inning and the Friars had a 7-3 lead after five innings. Henderson got a long two run homer from Evan Stiles to cut the Friars margin to 7-5 in the top the sixth inning.
Malvern got one of those runs back in the bottom of the sixth, another unearned run let up by the Warriors.
Marcum left the mound for Trey Tiffan who got the first two Henderson batters out in the top the seventh inning before Dan Surowiec reached first base on a Friars error. But, Tiffan struck out Ethan Ginagiulio to end the game, with Malvern Prep prevailing 8-5.
“We saw some good things today out of some guys who have not played that much but the bottom line is you want to score more runs than the other team and we did not do that today.” McNichol said.
Malvern Prep 8, wC Henderson 5
WC Henderson 000 032 0-5
Malvern Prep 00 1 511 -x8
2B-Lintelman, Clark 2, Simko. HR-Stiles.
WP-Davis. LP-Cugino.
