On a beautiful Friday afternoon at Bayard Rustin High School, the Rustin Knights brought the lumber out in full force to win their home opener 9-5 against the Kennet Blue Devils.
Kennet, an up and coming baseball program in recent years has always given Rustin some trouble. That continued to be the case on Friday afternoon as the Devils fought diligently and never seemed to go away.
Rustin's bats have carried the squad thus far this season, adding 9 more runs to the stat sheet giving them a total of 28 on the year. Do the math and Rustin is averaging just over 9 runs per game.
The game remained scoreless through the first two innings when Kennet put two runs on the board after Doug Frank surrendered a two run shot courtesy of Riley Burton in the top half of the third inning.
Nick Miller put Rustin on the board when he punished a solo home run out of the ballpark for his first home run of the season. A Danny Myers single scored Matt Gosik to knot up the game at two, and Alec O'dell touched the plate on a passed ball giving the gold and navy a 3-2 advantage."He threw me a fastball belt high and I turned on it" Miller said. "Getting it [the first home run] out of the way was nice. Now I can focus on getting base hits and doing my job at the plate. Home runs will come naturally but you don't have that burden of not getting one on your shoulders" Miller added.
The pesky Devils battled back to take a 4-3 lead with some situational baseball converting not one, but two sacrifice flies.
Starting ace Jack Fritz, who pitched in Monday's season opener versus Coatesville came in to relieve Frank to finish the game coming up clutch on the mound during the late innings.
Rustin broke open the game when Alec O'dell laced a ball to center field which got by the center fielder for an inside the park home run almost tripping and pulling a Ryan Braun rounding third base but managed to keep his balance to cross the plate successfully to give the Knights an 8-4 lead.
Rustin added an insurance run to make it a 9-4 ball game after starting catcher Mike Friedrich doubled to score Dylan Jenkins.
Kennett gave Rustin a scare in the top of the seventh inning by loading the bases, but Jack Fritz locked it down and managed to only give up a lone run which resulted in a 9-5 victory moving Rustin to 3-0 on the season.
Rustin hosts Shanahan on Monday afternoon at Bayard Rustin High School. Chris Catenacci is slated to take the hill for the Knights.
Chase Senior can be reached at Chase.Senior3@gmail.com
