With an abundance of pitching aces on their staff, the Virginia Barnstormers swept through this past weekend’s National Amateur Baseball Federation High School World Series with a perfect 8-0 record.
Of those eight victories, seven came by virtue of a complete-game pitching performance.
“Everybody pitched complete games,” Barnstormers coach Chris Warren said. “There was a little bit of competition going on between the pitchers. If one guy went out and pitched a complete game, the next guy wanted to, too.”
Joe Townsend provided the only inning of work out of the bullpen, closing for Danny Thorpe in a 20-3 second-game rout of the Tri-County Bees.
“The bottom line is in this tournament, we played eight games and had seven complete-game efforts from our pitchers,” Barnstormers assistant coach Rich Hart said. “All areas of the game — defense, hitting, baserunning and pitching, couldn’t have been any better. It was truly amazing.”
Joe McGillicuddy pitched the first game, a 3-0 victory over Putty Hill out of Baltimore. After Joe Warren pitched the third game, shutting out the defending champion Long Island Tigers, 11-0, McGillicuddy served as designated hitter for his twin brother John, who pitched the fourth game, a 19-4 rout of Forest, as the Barnstormers completed pool play with a perfect 4-0 record.
In Sunday’s first round of single-elimination tournament competition, Austin Freer hurled a no-hitter in a 5-1 win over the Ontario Blue Jays before Tyler Wislocki three-hit the previously undefeated Long Island Titans Gold team 7-1 to advance to the semifinals.
“We were pretty confident with whoever we put out there,” Warren said. “There was little dropoff between pitchers.”
Ryan Lindemuth, who came through in the clutch with his bat on Sunday, tossed a two-hit gem on the mound Monday morning in a 4-1 win over the Delco Diamonds, last year’s World Series runner-up.
“They had a couple good hitters in the middle of their lineup,” Lindemuth said. “We all came out and did what we needed to do. We’ve got a lot of good arms on the team and we were able to pull it out.”
Finally, in the championship game, Kenny Towns worked fast and threw strikes — 69 to be exact compared to 39 balls — earning MVP honors in blanking the Maryland Orioles 3-0.
“I was just the next pitcher in the rotation,” Towns said. “We have a pretty solid staff with good depth.”
Whereas the Orioles were forced to start Friday winners Brandon Franke and Steve Shillenburg on two-days’ rest in Monday’s semifinal and championship games, respectively, the Barnstormers had the luxury of sending a different pitcher to the mound in every game of the tournament.
“Pitching is key when you have to play eight games in four days,” Maryland Orioles coach Gary Fratantuono said.
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