In Tuesday’s Class 2A state semifinal, Huntingtown baseball was a tad better than Hereford in all the important areas that bring home wins.

The Hurricanes from Calvert County were a little more resourceful at the plate, opportunistic on the bases and their pitchers got tough outs when needed.

So despite an eight-hit attack and gutsy pitching performance from starter Aidan Ciurca, the Bulls’ bid to reach the program’s first state title game since 1975 fell short in a 4-2 setback at Joe Cannon Stadium.

The Hurricanes (16-3) got six resilient innings from starter Mason Wells with reliever Jack Cassidy pitching a clean seventh to get the save. They’ll meet Parkside in Saturday’s championship game set for 3:30 p.m. at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie.

In making its sixth state semifinal appearance, Hereford, which got five scrappy innings from Ciurca and two hits each from Daniel and Kreis Metz, finishes with a 16-7 mark.

“We hit the ball really hard, but often right at people — a lot of loud outs,” Hereford coach Brad Duvall said. “Aidan gutted it our for us. He didn’t have his best stuff and they fouled off a ton of pitches to get his pitch count up. I’m proud of my kids, they played really well tonight.”

The Bulls started fast with leadoff batter Gavin Jacker smacking a deep double to left, reaching third on Daniel Metz’s one-out single and then making it 1-0 on sacrifice fly by Kreis Metz.

They made it 2-0 in the top of the third when they strung together three straight two-out singles — Daniel Metz and then Kreis Metz followed by Leighton Alsip — to plate the run. The inning ended when Huntingtown catcher Ryder Bolger threw out Alsip at second on a double steal attempt.

The Hurricanes took over the rest of the game, plating two runs in the bottom of the third to get the game tied. Aiden Cassidy led off with a triple, Jacob Cadden and Wells hit singles and Ciurca hit two straight batters as part of a 29-pitch inning.

North Harford falls to Parkside

In the span of an inning, the North Harford baseball team’s Class 2A state title aspirations went from hopeful to troubling before finally ending via a 5-2 loss to Parkside in a state semifinal at Joe Cannon Stadium on Tuesday.

After both teams squandered early scoring opportunities, the Hawks scratched out two runs in the bottom of the third inning, but the Rams rallied for five runs in the top of the fourth and never looked back, thanks largely to the pitching of left-hander Tanner Trudeau, to punch their ticket to Saturday’s 2A state final.

The Rams (16-5) looked to strike first in the top of the first as the first two Parkside batters reached on an error and a single, but North Harford starter Matt Hart worked out of that early threat by throwing out the lead runner on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Garrett Jones before getting Chase Hurley to fly out to shallow right and striking out Chase Shepherd to end the inning.

— James Peters, For The Baltimore Sun

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