River Hill baseball uses small ball in 2-0 win over Sherwood for regional title: ‘They don’t quit’
Bunting is sometimes considered a lost art in baseball. Don’t tell that to River Hill.
The Hawks dropped down several bunts in critical moments of their 2-0 win over top-seeded Sherwood in Thursday’s Class 3A South Region II final.
Locked in a scoreless game in the eighth inning, senior Jake Miller went for a sacrifice bunt but beat it out, setting the Hawks up with runners on first and second with no outs.
Two batters later, junior Jonathan Bloom laid another bunt down the first base line. The throw to get Bloom at first was high, and the go-ahead run sprinted home.
“I was just looking around and I saw the third baseman was really far up,” Bloom said. “I said, ‘OK, if I need any chance of getting on and moving them over, I’m just going to push it down the first base line because the first baseman was back.’ My speed helped me out. It was just pure joy. I was just so excited that worked out.”
Henry Zatkowski followed that up with a sacrifice fly to deep left in the next at-bat, giving the Hawks a 2-0 lead entering the bottom of the eighth. However, the three-time defending Class 4A champion Warriors wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Sherwood had runners on first and third with two outs and No. 2 hitter Ryan Rey coming to the plate. A veteran of high-pressure situations, Zatkowski, the pitcher committed to Duke University, remained unfazed.
He punctuated a dazzling start with his 11th strikeout on his 103rd pitch as the No. 2 seed Hawks closed out the win.
“I was sticking to what I was doing the whole time,” Zatkowski said. “Deep breaths before every inning and every pitch. I took a big deep breath before that last pitch. I’m a deep believer in deep breaths. It definitely helps me calm down.
“It was just a huge weight off my shoulders. The guys bring so much energy. It feels like I have more pressure, but I dealt with that pressure and we got the win.”
“I see him every day and I’ve seen him for so long that it doesn’t even faze me anymore,” River Hill coach Craig Estrin said of Zatkowski. “Everybody else says, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ but that’s who he is. They didn’t get any hard contact on him. Everything was in the infield.”
River Hill (15-5) advances to the 3A state quarterfinals, where it will host Chesapeake-AA at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
Thursday afternoon’s matchup, delayed from Tuesday after persistent rain, was highly anticipated. Figuring to be a low-scoring battle with two strong starting pitchers, the game lived up to the hype and more. Zatkowski and Sherwood starter Mac Crismond each were dialed in, silencing the opposing lineup.
Crismond pitched 6 2/3 strong innings and struck out 10 while allowing just five hits. After Crismond’s dominance, Sherwood (15-3) had an opportunity to walk it off in the seventh with a runner on second and one out.
However, Carter Sweeney was left stranded after Zatkowski buckled down and struck out two Warriors to send the game to extra innings. The normally reserved Zatkowski and catcher Anderson Dang exchanged emphatic fist bumps.
“Catching Henry for three years definitely helps,” Dang said. “Every pitch, we’re basically on the same page. He probably shook me off twice the entire game. I know what he wants to throw. I just call it. Learning the batter’s tendencies throughout the game helps a lot. We talk to our coach before each inning about what each batter did the previous at-bats. Henry can know what the batter does, know where to put the ball and pitch to the player’s weaknesses.”
In the first seven innings, the bottom of River Hill’s lineup struggled. However, freshman Ethan McCoy started the rally with a hit by pitch. Then Miller, the No. 9 hitter who had been struggling before the regional final, stepped up in a critical moment. That turned the lineup over, and the ensuing hitters delivered to break the shutout.
From a personnel standpoint, this year’s group is vastly different than the River Hill team that won the 2023 3A state championship. However, this team, with many of those former players in attendance, possesses the same fight and no-quit attitude that group did, taking down one of the top public-school programs in Maryland.
“That’s the best program in the state,” Estrin said. “Everybody wants to be them and I get it. These guys, they don’t quit, they don’t quit.”
River Hill — 000 000 02 — 2 7 1
Sherwood — 000 000 00 — 0 3 1
WP: Henry Zatkowski; LP: Corey Rowell.