MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When you’re hot, you’re hot.
Of course, while we could be talking about the summer weather last night at Mylan Park, in fact it’s the Morgantown Post 2 baseball team that’s on fire — as it extended its winning streak to 10 straight games with a solid 8-0 shutout against Elkins.
A team is tough to beat when its defense is tight. It hits for power and average throughout its lineup and the pitching staff is deep and talented — and Post 2 checked all three boxes in Wednesday’s win against an Elkins team that it struggled to defeat earlier in the season.
But you can’t lose if you don’t let the opposing team score. Freshman left-hander Reed Bailey has yet to surrender a run so far in his Post 2 career — tossing a two-hit complete game, while facing just 4 over the minimum.
“It was my two-seamer that was working tonight,” he said. “I was hitting the outside corners with it, and Caleb (Taylor) was framing it up all game. He makes it really easy for me. I just throw what he asks me to throw. He’s the best catcher in the state, so I trust him to call the right pitch.
“And no,” he grinned, “I haven’t shaken him off yet and I don’t think I ever will. Why would I?”
Morgantown (14-1) got on top in the first inning after Taylor’s ringing two-out double to left and Devon Neal’s laser-shot RBI single that followed. The pair repeated the sequence to lead off the third, doubling the advantage off Elkins (9-10) starter Remington Stanley, but the burly right-hander was able to minimize the damage.
Until the fourth inning.
Post 2 broke the game open when Gavin Cottle and Ethan Smith (considered by manager Tyler Barnette to be “the best No. 9 hitter in the state”) singled, then power leadoff hitter Quintin Smith blasted a fastball out to left-center to make it 5-0.
While clearing the bases sometimes cools off an offense, Taylor and Neal once again produced, with the catcher rolling a single through the infield and the clean-up hitting third baseman drilling an opposite-field bomb over the left-center field wall to extend the lead to 7-0.
Quintin Smith’s sac fly in the fifth closed out the scoring.
“It was an outside fastball, and I didn’t think I got all of it,” Neal said of his game-breaking dinger. “I thought I was going to have to leg it out for a double, but it just kept carrying. We’re really on a roll right now, mostly because we’re getting contributions from everybody — the bats, the gloves and especially our pitching staff. I’d trust any of those guys to go out there and pitch a great game for us. So we just need to keep focused and keep getting better every game.”
Barnette agrees completely.
“Every guy on this team realizes that every single pitch is an opportunity to learn and to improve,” he said. “We have a great group of seniors and some very talented underclassmen and that makes for a great mix. We’re playing with confidence and concentration and trust in each other, and you can win a lot of games with that approach.”
Post 2 plays at Clarksburg at 7 p.m. Thursday.
