Madison Baseball Continues Regional Run

Despite trailing Yorktown 7-3 going into the bottom of the fifth inning on Monday, the Madison High School baseball team knew it wasn't ready to give up yet. And proved it.

That inning they scored five runs on six hits -- and later in the game knocked two homeruns -- to defeat the Yorktown Patriots 11-8 in the Northern Region quarterfinals at Lake Braddock High School.

“When you work as hard as we do in the off-season you just don’t surrender,” Madison Coach Mark Gjormand. “I told them not to get frustrated if they make a few mistakes, but our team is very resilient. We’ve done this all year.”

A big performance for the Warhawks came from senior Eli Facenda. Facenda came
in the top of the fifth and pitched three solid innings for Madison, only allowing a home run and a walk.

“When I got out there, I just knew that I needed to get the outs,” Facenda said. “The way a comeback begins is on the mound so I just knew what I needed to do.”

At the start of the bottom of the fifth, Madison sophomore Ben Socher led off with a single and junior Nate Favero hit him home with a double down the right field line. That was the end of the day for Yorktown’s junior starting pitcher Daniel Whitaker. Senior James Overbeek came in from third base to relieve Whitaker, but failed to retire one Warhawk batter, allowing three hits, three runs and hitting another
batter.

“We’ve been in this position before this season,” said senior catcher Jay Kenyon, who was 2-3, with a home run, three RBIs and three runs scored. “We just battled back at the end, and our pitching really stepped up.”

During that inning Favero and senior Justin Nicholls were successful in a double steal, and sophomore shortstop Andy McGuire hit both runners in to cut the lead to 7-6. An RBI double by junior Johnny Graham tied the game and an RBI single by senior Joe Corrigan gave the Warhawks their first lead since the bottom of the first.

Yorktown junior catcher Ryan ‘Red’ Dowdell hit a solo home run in the top of the sixth to tie the game back up, but Kenyon hit a two run shot and Graham added a solo home run to end the scoring.

“I didn’t think they had anyone that could get us out,” Gjormand said. “We were getting into a groove at the plate and with the number of pitchers they were putting on the mound told me they didn’t have anyone that could close the door on us.”

While Yorktown’s season is over, Madison now moves onto the semi-finals with a berth to the state tournament on the line. But it won’t be easy, as they play undefeated South County at Robinson at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.