MyParkTeam

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 @ Benilde
Varsity baseball vs. Benilde St. Margaret’s

Junior Colin Petit threw a three-hitter, but lost a heart-breaker to Benilde on opening day, 2-1.

During warmups, Park kicked the ball around quite a bit on the choppy Benilde field, and coaches Chad Austad and Al Wachutka were hoping the defense would get all the errors out of their system before the game started–they did!

Park played a fine defensive game, but couldn’t muster much offense off a fine Benilde chucker, collecting only five hits themselves.

In the bottom of the first, Petit got the first two batters out on a flyout to Phil Gauthier and a groundout to Mitchell Wynia, and appeared to get the third batter out to end the inning…but the Benilde batter got just enough of a two strike curveball to dribble a lazy infield single just inside the third base line. The Benilde cleanup hitter followed with an opposite field homer–the only runs Petit would allow all game.

Park got their lone run in the top of the third when Matt Scudder reached on an error and scored on a Wynia double.

Petit ended up allowing two earned runs on three hits in six innings (2.33 ERA), struck out three, and only issued one free pass.

For Park, Mike Yaeger led all batters with two hits; Wynia, Petit, and Gauthier collected one hit each. Mick Sawinski stole a base in the first for the other offensive highlight.

Defensively, Dalton Shaughnessy called a nice game behind the dish and threw out an attempted base stealer, and Petit, a groundball pitcher, had plenty of help in his infield: Wynia played a nice game at shortstop with five assists and one putout, and his pivot partner Sawinski had three assists and a putout.

“Colin pitched great,” said co-head coach Chad Austad. “We couldn’t have asked for a better outing, and our defense was great.”

“Colin really only made one mistake the entire game,” added co-head coach Wachutka. “The home run was on a pitch he left up.”

_____