Potomac Falls stops Orange in Region II final

ORANGE - Potomac Falls catcher Mike Spring came through for Potomac Falls with a two-out, two-RBI hit in the seventh inning, breaking a tie and lifting the Panthers to a 5-1 victory over Orange County in the Region II baseball championship on Friday night.

The Panthers (21-3) tacked on two more runs in the seventh after a Hornets throwing error kept the inning alive. Eric Dimsey then breezed through the bottom of the seventh in four batters to secure the victory.

“You see it when you’re dealing with teenagers out here,” said Orange coach Jesse Lohr of the way the hits and errors built on each other. “Sometimes when an emotional situation happens, they are not saying anything but they drop their heads little bit.”

Dimsey, whose normal position is left field, entered in the third inning with one out in relief of senior starter Mike Detaranto. The duo combined for a great outing, allowing only four hits while striking out only three. Both were very effective at getting the Hornets (21-2) to ground or fly out. The Panthers’ defense was perfect behind the pitchers, playing error-free baseball the entire game.

“We’re putting the ball in play,” Lohr said. “We’re not sitting here swinging and missing. We have to take advantage of putting guys on base. When we get them there, we need to score some runs.”

Orange senior pitcher D.J. Brown pitched all but the last out of the seventh, racking up 10 strikeouts in the losing effort.

“Today, we made some plays, but the ball didn’t always fall where we wanted it to,” Brown said.

Brown was nearly flawless after giving up a run in the first inning, holding the Panthers to two hits the rest of the way until the game unraveled in the seventh.

“We have patient hitters,” said Potomac Falls coach Joe Terango. “The young man they had on the mound was a patient pitcher. He has a very nice breaking ball. We knew he was going to put the baseball in the dirt against us. We coach our kids not to swing at curve balls down in the strike zone. Even though we coach that way, we still had a hard time in the first three or four innings…

“Once he settled in, he was so on with his pitches — especially the curve ball in the dirt — but once we got to see him two or three times, we started picking up on his angles, the release point, and we ended up getting to him a little bit.”

The Panthers move on to face Grafton at home on Tuesday at 6 p.m. With the loss, the Hornets will travel to Poquoson on Tuesday for a 5 p.m. matchup.