S. Mountain's hopes tarnished by steal

July 24, 2003

SALISBURY, Md. - If it's any consolation to the South Mountain Little League team, it didn't exactly lose on Wednesday at the Maryland State 11 & 12 Tournament.

It was stolen from them.

Northern Calvert, the District 7 champ, executed a delayed double steal in the top of the seventh inning to pilfer a 5-4 victory over South Mountain in the tournament's losers' bracket final.

The loss eliminated the District 1 champions, who finished in third place, and moves Northern Calvert into tonight's championship round match with West Salisbury for the right to advance to the Little League regionals.

South Mountain came back from deficits of 3-0 and 4-3 to force extra innings, but couldn't keep Northern Calvert from gaining the upper hand in the extra inning. In fact, Northern Calvert scored the winning run without the benefit of a hit.

Colin Brown led off the seventh by drawing a walk off South Mountain reliever Shane Lowery and proceeded to take second on an error and third on a groundout. Eric Renn drew a walk to put runners on first and third.

On a Lowery pitch, Renn made a delayed move to second base and got himself in a rundown between bases long enough to allow Brown to score.

South Mountain failed to threaten and couldn't tie the score in the bottom of the inning.

Northern Calvert took a 3-0 lead off South Mountain starter Adam Chambers with single runs in the first, third and fifth innings. Colin Miller hit a solo home run in the fifth for the third run.

South Mountain came back with three runs in the fifth. Lowery and Cody Linton led off the inning with abunt singles off Northern Calvert starter David Rice, before John Shobe reached on an error to load the bases. Tyler Walsh got South Mountain on the scoreboard with a two-run single to right and Chambers' sacrifice fly tied the game.

Northern Calvert regained the lead on Josh Wayne's RBI single in the sixth.

South Mountain answered and sent the game into extra innings in its half of the inning when Josh Smith singled and took third when the right fielder misplayed the hit, setting up John Slick's run-scoring groundout.

Chambers went six innings, allowing seven hits while striking out six. Lowery struck out two in his inning of work.

Travis Wagner got the win with one inning of relief for Northern Calvert.

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