St, Mary's Door tops Indian Head

In the last game for each team prior to a brief Independence Day holiday break that marks the genuine midway portion of the Charles–St. Mary’s Baseball League schedule, the defending CHASM league champion St. Mary’s Door benefited from four home runs en route to a 7-3 victory on Sunday morning at Rainbow Construction Field.

St. Mary’s Door got six solid innings from starting pitcher Greg Keobke and the Door’s slumbering offense came to life early and provided the hurler with ample support. Koebke doubled and scored on a homer by Garrett Pulliam and later Chris Custer belted two homers and Stafford Allison added another as St. Mary’s cruised to a 7-3 victory.

“We really haven’t been scoring many runs, so it was good to see the bats come alive today,” Custer said. “Greg was really good for six innings and we finally put some runs on the board. We’ve been getting good pitching, but we haven’t been scoring many runs so far. It felt good to hit a couple [homers] today. That first one was a no-doubter, but the second one I didn’t think was going out.”

St. Mary’s scored three runs in the top of the first against Indian Head hurler Joey Meehal on homers from Pulliam and Custer, but the hosts responded with two runs in the home half of the frame against Koebke on a single by Sam Wright followed by a throwing error from right. But Indian Head would be unable to score again against Koebke who later benefited from back-to-back homers from Allison and Custer to start the fourth.

“i thought my fastball and change up were both pretty good today,” Koebke said. “It definitely felt good to get that run support. We haven’t been scoring many runs before today, but it felt good to be part of the offense.”

St. Mary’s padded its lead in the top of the fifth, adding two runs without getting a base hit. After three consecutive Door batters walked to lead off the inning, Pulliam drew a one-out walk to force in a run and St. Mary’s added another when Indian Head attempted to turn an inning-ending double play that instead allowed another runner to cross home plate.

Indian Head got one run back in the home half of the eighth on a single by Charlie Wright, but the Indians would fail to add another run and left the bases loaded. Indian Head threatened again in the bottom of the ninth but failed to score as one of its base runners was struck by a batted ball in fair territory. In those situations the runner is out but the batter is credited with a single.