BERLIN- Stephen Decatur’s varsity baseball team ran into a buzz saw on Wednesday, falling to rival Parkside, 5-1, for their first loss of the season.
With a playoff atmosphere, several big league scouts in attendance and a big bipartisan crowd on hand, the second game in the season series between the Seahawks and the Rams certainly lived up to the hype. At least three players in the game have already committed to big time Division I college programs and each are being courted by Major League scouts.
Decatur’s Grant Donohue is headed to Virginia next year, while Seahawk shortstop and spark plug Justin Meekins is headed to the University of Maryland. Parkside starter Hunter Parsons is also headed to Maryland. All three marquise players in the game showed off their impressive skills that merited the attention with Donohue solid on the mound, Meekins making several huge plays in the field and scoring the Seahawks lone run. But for one day, at least, it was Parsons who shined the brightest.
The Parkside starter was dominating on the mound, allowing just one run and one hit while striking out 13 in six innings. Parkside got on the board first in the top of the third inning. After an infield hit, a stolen base and a sacrifice bunt, the Ram runner scored from third when a pitch squirted just out of the reach of the Decatur catcher. The Seahawks led off the bottom of the third with a pair of walks and the runners moved up to second and third with one out, but the runner from third attempted to score on a passed ball and was thrown out on a great play by the Parkside pitcher and catcher.
Decatur pulled even with a run in the bottom of the fourth on the Seahawks’ lone hit in the game. Meekins was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a passed ball. Zach Adams then lined a base hit up the middle to score Meekins from second and the game was tied 1-1 as the tension built.
Parkside took the lead with a single run in the top of the fifth and three more in the top of the sixth to go ahead, 4-1. Parkside added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to extend the lead to 5-1 and the Seahawks went quietly in the bottom of the seventh. The teams have now split two games this season with a Seahawks rallying for a 4-3 win in the first game in early April. Decatur and Parkside are now tied atop the Bayside South with each team with just one loss.