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Sports

Baseball: Mt. Hebron Beats Howard, Heads To Regional Semifinal

The Vikings beat the Lions, 12-8, behind a strong start from pitcher Andrew Giuliani.

On the mound, the Mt. Hebron Vikings had a complete game from Andrew Giuliani. At the plate, they had a team hitting well from top to bottom. By the end, the team had a 12-8 victory over the Howard Lions, a victory that lands them in the regional semifinals against top-seeded James M. Bennett High School of Salisbury.

Giuliani was dominant through the first six innings, allowing just one run, but he had to battle through the last two innings.

Though Giuliani gave up a lot of runs in the last two innings, Vikings coach Brian Culley was still thrilled with the work his pitcher had done during the comeback.

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“That’s his best characteristic as a pitcher from the very get go ever since I saw him as an incoming freshman,” Culley said after the game. “He’s really gutsy and he’s got the heart of a lion and he was able to gut it out.”

Culley said he knew Giuliani “didn’t have his A-plus stuff.”

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Mt. Hebron took the lead right away with a run in the first inning. Howard was able to take advantage of a fielding error in the outfield to get the run back in the bottom of second inning, scoring off a sacrifice fly. After that, Giuliani kept Howard off the board until the bottom of the seventh inning.

The Vikings broke through with five runs in the third and hardly looked back afterward. With runners at the corners, Raul Shah draw a walk to load the bases and then Ted Trappozano singled home two runs. Steven Scholtz followed with another RBI single to score Ryan Toland. Johnny Schenk singled a fourth run home before a wild pitch gave Hebron its fifth run of the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Tyler Anthony, playing in center field, made a dazzling diving catch.

“That was great,” Giuliani said after the game. “There’s nothing more a pitcher wants than someone in the outfield making a great catch, saving some runs and keeping us in the game.”

The Vikings scored three runs in the top of the seventh, upping their lead to 10-1.

The insurance runs proved to be important.

Giuliani ran into trouble for the first time in the bottom of the seventh inning. A triple to left scored two runs, and Howard was able to score three more before Giuliani made it out of the inning.

Even with Mt. Hebron still leading 10-6 in the top of the eighth and final inning, Giuliani tripled home a run and then scored on an RBI groundout, helping his own cause by picking up two more insurance runs.

Howard was able to get two more runs from Giuliani off a bloop single in the eighth, but he got a hitter to pop up to second base to finish off the game. 

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