Falcons Defeat North County, Set Up Friday Night Showdown With Chesapeake

For the Severna Park softball team, Thursday’s matchup with North County was the proverbial trap game.

The Falcons were riding an eight-game win streak and hadn’t lost to a county opponent all season. A win would set up a Friday battle between Chesapeake and Severna Park with both teams undefeated in county play.

A loss would have been a wompy, anti-climactic letdown a day before the much-hyped showdown with the Cougars.

Severna Park wasn’t falling in any traps.

The Falcons came out blazing in all three facets—pitching, hitting and defense—to notch an emphatic 6-1 win over the Knights (7-2 in county play) and run their record to 11-1 overall and a perfect 9-0 in the county.

Marissa Heuer notched her 10th win of the season by going the full seven innings, scattering four hits and striking out eight.

Campbell Kline continued her torrid season-long hit parade by going 3 for 4 with a triple and scoring twice. Jessie Smith was 3 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored, while Heuer and Maddy Gerard both had RBI doubles, and Gerard scored a run. Emma Hall, Abby Becker and Emily Summers all added hits as the Falcons went 11 for 31 as a team.

With wins in the past week over Glen Burnie, Old Mill and now North County, Smith said the team’s focus only got sharper as buzz around the team’s success grew louder.

“In the past sometimes we focused on, ‘Two games down the line we’re playing this team’ or whatever, and this year we’re doing really well at, yeah we have Chesapeake tomorrow, but we’re really focused on North County,” said Smith. “I think that’s just having our focus on one thing, no distractions, and that’s helped us. We’re doing a really good job keeping each other in the game, teammates-wise, we have each other’s backs and support each other really well, and that keeps us going in games.”

The focus began in the circle, with Heuer zipping fastballs past Knight hitters, and in the field, where the Falcons made a slew of crisp defensive plays. Rachel Holly made a diving stop at second and threw to Smith at first for a nice 4-3 putout in the second inning. Becker, the Falcons’ catcher, threw out a base-stealer in the third inning, with Kline applying the tag at second base. Heuer, Kline and Hall all made difficult infield putouts.

Already up 3-0 in the fifth inning, the Falcons put rally caps on in the dugout and hooted and hollered their way to three more runs over the final two frames.

“We were way more focused today,” said Heuer. “In the dugout we had our rally caps on. We were so hyped.”

The team now turns its focus to the Cougars, who are a perfect 13-0 after Wednesday’s win over Annapolis. The winner of the much-anticipated matchup will have the inside track on the regular-season county championship, as well as the head-to-head advantage for any potential rematch in the county championship game on May 8.

The Cougars and Falcons will play under the lights at Bachman Park on Friday at 7 p.m.

“We’re really hyped up for Chesapeake,” said Smith, “and it’s going to be very exciting.”

Extra Bases:

Kline, the team’s leadoff hitter, produced an outstanding season last year when she batted .611 with 44 hits.

She’s on pace to put up even bigger numbers this year.

Including Thursday’s contest against North County, the junior shortstop is hitting a blistering .744—32 for 43—in 12 games this season.

According to Kline, she has grown more comfortable as a left-handed hitter, which she switched to permanently after being a switch-hitter through the 2016 season. Whereas last year she could frequently be seen slapping the ball for hits to the opposite field while getting a running start to first, on Thursday she kept her weight back and ripped lined drives to the outfield. On Thursday she complemented her fifth-inning drive to the gap in right-center with her speed, cruising into third base with a stand-up triple.

“Last year I hadn’t had a ton of experience hitting left-handed,” said Kline. “As soon as I started working on it a little more I could slap and hit. Now I feel like I’m getting more of a sense of hitting left-handed since I wasn’t naturally left-handed, so now that I’ve practiced it more, I feel like I’m more confident. When I get in the box, I take a look at the field and see where everyone is. Depending on where they are, I see where I can hit it.”

So far, the fielders aren’t in the right place, and no pitchers in the county have had any success against her. Kline will have a crack at one of the county’s best pitchers in Chesapeake’s do-everything dynamo Haley Downin (a club teammate of hers) on Friday.

“I’m extremely excited,” said Kline. “I have my team to back me up, and they make me excited all the time to go up there and hit.”