Kline Out Duels Strange in Key Dulles Battle
Storyline information provided by Gameday Panther Baseball Insider, Barry Sweger
In Dulles District baseball action Friday night, Potomac Falls traveled to Loudoun County High School with hopes of gaining some momentum, and a measure of respect, in the Dulles District, with a little more than a week and a half remaining in the regular season, and going into tournament play. Jacob Kline made sure that the Panthers got just that, as he goes the distance to notch the 4-2 victory, striking out 10 along the way.
The Panthers started strong when leadoff hitter Greg Woodlief was hit by the second pitch of the game by Joe Strange, advancing to second when Mike Spring walked. Cory Flickinger followed with a hard single to left field to score Woodlief, with Spring moving to third and Flickinger to second after ball was bobbled on the play. Aaron Sweger then followed with a single to right to score Spring and Rob Malan followed with a single to left to score Flickinger. Strange then induced Kline to hit into a double play to escape any further damage.
Kline cruised through the first two innings before giving up a triple to Kory Pratt in the third. Pratt later scored on a balk to plate the unearned run and bring the Raiders to within two runs at 3-1. Kline settled down after the inning, shutting down the Raider offense through 6 innings, with 7 strikeouts. The Panthers added an insurance run in the seventh inning when Rob Malan hit a double to the left field gap to score Flickinger who had reached on a fielder's choice to make the score 4-1.
Kline started off the 7th inning by striking out Erik Prinz and Kory Pratt before facing Taylor Lambke. The freshman muscled up, and launched a bomb over the left field fence, to tally his first homerun of the season, to make the score 4-2. Kline shrugged off the lapse, and ended the game, by striking out Raider top gun, Bret Tagg.
In addition to Kline's mound performance, The Panther offense was led by Sweger (3-4, 1 RBI) and Malan (2-4, 2 RBI). Loudoun County was led by Talyor Lambke who was 2-3 in the game to go with his homerun.
