Cougars come up short
By Dave Buschenfeldt
Oakton baseball coach Scott Rowland does not often make mistakes on the diamond, but when he does, he is the first to take responsibility. With his team tied, 3-3, in the top of the sixth inning of Monday night's Concorde District championship game against Chantilly, Rowland decided to stick with senior Kevin Wager on the mound, only to watch Chargers junior Brian King launch a two-run homer over the right-center field fence. King's round tripper proved to be the difference in Chantilly's 5-3 victory.“It starts with me,” said Rowland, whose team has fallen in the last two district finals. “I had a chance to put in a ground ball pitcher [Bart Reese] against a fly ball hitter and I left our pitcher in. So it starts with me. We had our guy ready in the bullpen. I just didn't pull the trigger.”
Reese threw just 40 pitches over five innings in Saturday's semifinal win against Robinson, and the right-hander was ready to go if his coach gave him the ball. But Rowland chose to let Wager work out of the inning, a call he wishes he could take back.
“Obviously, if I'd have known he was going to hit a home run, I wouldn't have done it,” Rowland said. “We discussed it before he hit it. It's my call to make.”
Oakton had a chance to get out of the inning one batter before King, but the Cougars were unable to turn a potential inning-ending double play.
“Before the home run, we had the double play ball and we didn't complete the double play,” Rowland said. “That's been kind of a nemesis for us all year and it finally bit us. That could've ended the inning right there.”
Wager was nearly perfect over the first four innings Monday, allowing just one hit to Chantilly, but the Chargers' bats awoke in the top of the fifth and they scored three runs off the righty. The Cougars answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the frame, thanks to a hit batter, two walks and a two-run double by senior Keith Werman. Werman had Oakton's only two hits on an uncharacteristically cold offensive night for the Cougars.
Last season, Oakton rebounded from its loss in the district final to win a Northern Region championship, a feat Rowland is hopeful his team can repeat.
“I still think we can beat anybody, but it's obvious we can lose to anybody, too,” he said. “We'll have to regroup. It's going to be hard to regroup after a tough loss like this.”