Welcome to the 2023 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Tyler Henshaw (Brockport High School / Rockport, NY), and Brady Whitacre (Frankfort High School / Short Gap, WV) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary.
Hello Catamount fans and welcome back to this week’s edition of the 2023 Potomac State Baseball Player Diary! This was an eventful week as the schedule was constantly changing because of the weather and Easter. Coming up this week is four games, awards for players, and more!
As I have already alluded to, we had some schedule changes this week. We were supposed to go to Harrisonburg, VA to take on Eastern Mennonite University on Thursday of last week but the forecast did not look good at all so the decision was made to reschedule the game. The official reschedule date is Tuesday, April 18th at 1:00pm. This meant that our next games would be at Harford Community College. For those of you who don’t know Harford is a regional opponent, so these games carry some more weight than any of the previous games we have played this season.
We loaded the bus and departed on the 3-hour trip to Bel Air, MD at 7:45am. After a quick stop in Bridgeport, WV to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom we arrived at Harford around 11:15. First pitch was thrown at exactly 1:00, Harford got off to a quick start scoring 2 in the bottom of the 1st. We quickly answered back with 3 runs in the top of the 2nd highlighted by a opposite field home run by Nik Rubendall. The game was scoreless until the top of the 5th when we pushed another insurance run across via the bat of Jimmy Sadler. The Fighting Owls scored 1 in the 5th making the score 4-3 us. They pushed 4 more across in the 6th taking the lead 7-4. We did not score any in the 7th dropping the first game by the score of 7-4. This was not the way we wanted to start regional play and knew we needed to come out strong for game two.
Game two started fast as both teams scored 4 in the 2nd inning and then one more in the 3rd making it all knotted up at 5-5 going into the top of the 5th. A Zach Brennan single brought home a run giving us the lead in the very next inning. Harford answered back in the bottom of the 6th tying the game at 6 apiece. The game went scoreless the next three innings taking us all the way to the 10th inning. The Fighting Owls scored in the bottom of the 10th giving them the walk off win by score of 7-6. This was a crushing loss that made for a very long ride back to Keyser.
Yesterday we brought in Shenandoah University to play them in a doubleheader. We started the game out strong scoring 3 runs in the first inning highlighted by an absolutely crushed home run by Dakota Miller. The Hornets scored 5 runs within innings 2, 3, and 4 giving them a 5-3 lead after 3 and a half innings. We answered back in the bottom of the 4th going for 4 runs and taking back the lead by 2. Shenandoah scored 10 unanswered runs over the next 3 innings giving them the game 1 victory by score of 15-7. This was not the way we wanted to start a doubleheader at home and knew that we needed to regroup and break this losing streak in game two.
We were looking for someone to set the tone in game two and that is exactly what starting pitcher Caden Goodwin did. Goodwin gave us a strong 5.2 innings allowing just 4 hits and only giving up 2 runs. We scored 3 runs in the 3rd inning and 2 more in the 5th giving us a 5-0 lead going into the 6th inning. The Hornets were able to score 3 runs in the 6th cutting our lead to just 2 runs with one inning left to play. Needing just 3 more outs to secure the win, Chase Lautner came in to shut the door getting two outs with the bases loaded and giving us the 5-4 win. This was a huge victory for us and broke our 3-game losing streak.
I want to give a huge shoutout to Xander Meckley for being named NJCAA Region 20 Player of the Month. Meckley’s official stat line for this season is 28 innings pitched, 21 hits, striking out 49 batters, and giving up just 10 earned runs earning him a 3.21 ERA. His season is highlighted by his outing vs #1 team in the nation, Walters State Community College when he went 5 complete innings striking out 12 batters and giving up 0 runs.
We are right back at it tomorrow (Wednesday) when we will make the short trip to Alleghany College of Maryland to take them on in a single 9 inning game that starts at 3:00pm. I really hope you enjoyed this week’s written version of the player diary. As always, be sure to check out the video as Tyler is heading that up and we give you a look at some activities that the written version does not cover. To stay up to date with the 2023 Catamounts, check in weekly as Tyler and I plan to cover the inside and out of what being a Potomac State baseball player is like. If you have any questions or requests about different topics, you want us to cover, please contact me through email (nbw00004@mix.wvu.edu), or Twitter (@brady_whitacre). I also encourage you to follow our teams Twitter account (@PotomacStateBB) and Facebook page (Potomac State Baseball). Until next week, Go Catamounts!