by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
Lancaster’s varsity baseball team has a two-game hold on first place heading into the final week of regular season play. The Devils are 9-5 overall with the Conference #43 tournament beginning on Monday, May 22.
Lancaster will travel to the Eastern Shore today, May 11, to play Northampton, host Middlesex on Friday May 12, and end the season at home on Tuesday, May 16, in a highly-anticipated rematch with Northumberland. The Indians and Devils played a 13-inning game last time the two met with NHS winning on a walk-off homer.
Matthew Kleinfelter hit a three-run home run and picked up the win on the mound last Thursday when the Devils beat Rappahannock, 8-1.
Kleinfelter allowed two hits, walked four and struck out seven in a complete game.
“Matthew did a great job pitching with a very dominating performance,” said LHS coach Welby Saunders.
Kleinfelter also cleared the bases, hitting a three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to score Adam Wilmore and Hunter Koonce. The Devils rallied for four runs with two outs after Jacob Taft hit a single and scored on a double by Wilmore. Koonce also singled.
Lancaster had put two on the board in the second with a lead-off single by Spencer Crittenden, a double by Brandon Rosalia and a two-RBI single by Jayson Gill.
Then with one out in the third, Danny Hinson hit a double and scored on a single by Nick Wohleking.
Wilmore hit a single in the bottom of the fifth and stole second before scoring on a grounder by Crittenden.
Hinson went 2-for-4 with two doubles and a run scored and Wilmore was 2-for-3 with a double and two runs to lead Lancaster.
Rappahannock took advantage of some “key errors and hit the ball well,” said Saunders to beat Lancaster 13-4 last Tuesday.
Crittenden and Hinson led the offense with three hits each, while Rosalia, Wilmore and Wohleking had two hits apiece for LHS. Lancaster had closed the gap to 3-2 when the Raiders batted through the line-up for five runs in the fifth inning.
