Oh, mercy mercy me.
For the first time this season, the Cavaliers triggered a mercy rule against their opponent, Waldorf High School, ending the game with a cool 15-2 victory.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the mercy rule ends the game early if one team is 10 runs ahead. Although the Cavs had already achieved a score of 14-1 by the end of the fourth inning, the rule also requires that the lagging team play a minimum of four-and-a-half or five innings before a game can be called.
According to senior Ethan Ham, the Waldorf that the Cavs played today was starkly different from those of seasons past.
“They definitely weren’t as great as they were other years,” said Ham. “They made a lot of errors.”
“Yeah,” senior Erik Morfin chimed in with a smile. “They used to mercy us!”
Ham also attributed the team’s success against Waldorf to good defense, something that sophomore David Boley agreed with.
“No errors were made and we had some good defensive plays,” Boley said. “We finally stopped taking runs and started making them.”
The consensus among those interviewed was that the defensive highlight of the game was a double play made by senior George Cvetich, freshman Miles Edwards and Boley.
After catching a ground ball off of a bounce, Cvetich threw it to Edwards at second for the first out. Edwards then tossed it to Boley at first for the second out.
The good plays didn’t stop there either. At the end of the game, the Cavs had a 100-percent fielding percentage, with the game ending on a caught fly ball by senior Dominic Stephen (his third of the game).
“The team was flawless on the defensive side of the game,” Stephen said. “I can’t remember the last time that’s happened for our baseball team.”
However, defense means nothing without the runs to back it up. According to Boley, that wasn’t a problem.
“Their pitching wasn’t great, but it’s not like they walked us too much. We had some pretty solid hits,” he said.
“We smacked it,” said Ham with a grin.
The offensive star of the game seemed to be Keegan Crain, who got a hit at both of his at bats. Not only that, but both of those were doubles, netting Crane a whopping four runs batted in – the most out of anyone that game.
Ham sees the team’s performance against Waldorf as indicative of the way things have been shaping up this year.
“We’re a solid team,” Ham said. “We don’t just have one or two stars and several bad players. We’re pretty consistent all the way through, and that helps.”
The Cavs’ next game will be against Faith Christian on Wednesday, March 18.
Hopefully, we can show them a little mercy.
