Bracken, Kline Power Panthers Over Louisa
Game Coverage Provided by Potomac Falls\Gameday Insider
John Bracken had a key RBI triple in the 7th inning and Jacob Kline had 2 RBI singles as the Panthers broke a 2 - 2 deadlock with four runs in the top of the 7th inning to beat the Louisa Lions 6 - 3 in the Regional Quarterfinals.
In front of a capacity partisan crowd at Louisa High School, the Panthers received a great pitching performance from Cory Flickinger and their defense got them out of a few jams. The Panthers led off the scoring in the 2nd inning when Bracken hit a double off the left field fence and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Kline then hit a single to right field to score Bracken. The Lions responded with a run of their own when Chris Bell hit a single to left field, and advanced to third on an overthrown cutoff. John Barfield then hit a drive to right field, which Bracken made a great catch at the fence to rob the potential extra base hit, and Bell scored easily on the sacrifice to tie the game at 1.
Potomac Falls then scored in the third when Greg Woodlief reached base on a walk and Mike Spring followed with a triple into the left field corner just out of the reach of a diving Kenny Fleming. The Lions tied it in the fourth when Bell collected his second hit, a double over the left fielder's head. He advanced to third on a passed ball and scored when Jeff Mehlhaff hit a bloop fly ball, tailing towards the right field line, that Panther second baseman Nick Paganelli made a great running catch on, but wasn't able to get the out at the plate.
With the score tied 2 - 2, the Lion's first 2 batters in the bottom of the 6th inning, were able to reach base, and both advanced to 2nd and 3rd on a wild pitch. With no outs, Barfield hit a shot that appeared to be heading for right field, and would have scored both runners, when Panther first baseman Aaron Sweger stabbed the ball, held the runners and raced to tag out Barfield as he headed down the line. Flickinger then induced two consecutive groundouts and the game went into the 7th inning, still tied at 2.
Rob Malan lead off the inning with a walk and was knocked in when Bracken hit a triple down the right field line. He scored when Kline followed with his second RBI single to left field. Patrick Nightingale then pinch hit and hit a shot to short, however Tyler Brookman's throw to first was wide and Nightingale was safe. With runners on the corners, Paganelli laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt down the first base line to score pinch runner Michael Detaranto. On the next pitch, Nightingale was stealing third when Lions catcher Brian Grubbs throw to third sailed into left field and Nightingale scored the final Panther run to give them a 6 - 2 lead.
The Lions were not done as their first 2 batters in the 7th inning reached on a hit and a hit batter, successively. At this point Flickinger's night was over as Kline came on to close out the 7th. He proceeded to get two groundball outs before a run scored on a hard hit ball by Tyler Brookman that was ruled an error. Kline then got Eric Church to ground to third and Malan made a diving stop and threw out Church at first to end the game.
Cory Flickinger got the win with 6 innings pitched, giving up 5 hits with 2 strikeouts. John Bracken was 2-3 (double & triple) with an RBI and Jacob Kline was 2-3 with 2 RBI's. For the Lions, Eric Church gave up 5 hits and had 10 strikeouts and Chris Bell was 2-3.
The Panthers get no rest as they now travel to Waynesboro to play on Wednesday night at 6:00 in the Semifinals.
