No. 15 Towson baseball erupts in big fourth inning, powering 10-0 win over Dulaney
Towson and Dulaney, two of Baltimore County’s top baseball teams, were locked in a close game through three innings with the Generals holding a slim one-run lead.
That all changed in a hurry.
Towson batted around the lineup in a six-run fourth inning to build a substantial lead. Then, despite being on the bench for close to 30 minutes while his team was at the plate, Towson pitcher Grayden Kimball went back to the mound and picked up right where he left off.
The Generals added another three runs in the bottom of the fifth, which triggered a mercy rule and a 10-0 win.
Towson improves to 10-2 with the win while Dulaney (9-7) saw its five-game winning streak come to an end.
Kimball left the game after five innings on the mound. He retired the side in the fifth despite the lengthy time sitting in the dugout while his team racked up runs in the fourth.
“It was really long,” Kimball said. “I stretched a lot and then I started throwing with one of our catchers back in the woods.”
While Kimball held his own in the field, Towson second baseman Connor Dickens gave the offense its spark in the fourth inning.
After Nate Berkowitz walked to start the inning and Jake Dickensheets reached base on a swinging bunt, Dickens singled into the left field gap scoring the two runners.
Dulaney was forced to go into their bullpen in the fourth inning. Pitcher Drew Ranck went 2 2/3 innings and allowed three runs (only one earned) with six walks and five strikeouts. Towson coach Shawn Tormey believes that most teams don’t have a lot of depth in their pitching staffs, so his team wanted to drive up pitch counts to force teams to use their bullpens.
Asher Grotsky and Aziz Bishop combined for six walks and five runs. Their effort and discipline at the plate turned into runs and showed what a high pitch count could mean for opposing teams.
“Most high schools have two or three guys that can really throw, but then when you start to get in their bullpen, things like this snowball,” Tormey said. “[Ranck] is a heck of a pitcher and we were able to get a big hit in a big moment and get his pitch count up. The combination of those two things just snowballs. It’s the same exact snowball that happened to us when we were at that place.”
Towson and Dulaney met earlier in the season, a 13-3 Dulaney win on April 5. Towson hasn’t lost since. Tormey said the revenge game didn’t give him any extra motivation because everything resets once the playoffs start.
“The winning streak is nice, the results are nice, but to be honest, it does absolutely nothing,” Tormey said. “There’s going to be a 3A North bracket, and we’re going to be in that bracket. Nothing that happened on April 24 is going to impact once those bracket games start happening.”
The win did however, mean more for Kimball and Dickens.
“I would say a lot of motivation [came from] the last game,” Dickens said. “It’s definitely going to be a memory for a while.”
“We were locked in,” Kimball added. “Got some practice under our belt, a lot more games… It doesn’t really matter until the playoffs, but this is amazing.”