By Alan Goldenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 28, 2005

Calvert Coach Frank Moore hopes his team's offense won't disappear in the playoffs the way it did last year, when the Cavaliers lost, 1-0, to La Plata in the Maryland 3A South Region semifinals. He has good reason to think that it won't.

No. 4 Calvert moved closer to a second consecutive undefeated SMAC season Monday with a 3-0 victory at Thomas Stone. Freshman Lauren Robison homered over the left field fence on the first pitch of the game, and the Cavaliers added eight more hits. Junior Keirstynn Romero added a two-run double in the third inning.

The hitting has gotten so good, it was easy for Moore to excuse his team for not scoring in the sixth inning when it had the bases loaded with no one out and the middle of the order coming to bat.

"You want to be better in May than you are in March," Moore said. "So far, we keep hitting better and better, not like last year, when it went away at the end of the year."

Calvert has defeated the SMAC's next four best teams -- Huntingtown, Thomas Stone, Patuxent, and La Plata -- five times by a combined score of 10-0.

"We figure we had five big games this year, and in those five games, they haven't scored on us," Moore said. "That's pretty impressive. So far we've taken care of every challenge. We're right where we want to be."

Calvert, which has won 30 consecutive SMAC games, has four games left, none against a team with a winning record. It's almost time to start examining the Cavaliers' new playoff region, the 2A South.

"We're peaking, but we're not looking just yet," Moore said.

The toughest potential opponent for Calvert is probably undefeated Howard County school Centennial (12-0). Easton and North Caroline, both from the Eastern Shore, have combined to win the past five 2A titles.

The only blemish on Calvert's 11-game winning streak was the loss of senior outfielder Kirsten Forsyth. She injured her right thumb in last Friday's 3-0 victory over Chopticon, but it was diagnosed this week as a fracture. The four-year starter is available to pinch-run, Moore said.

The SMAC was forced to join the rest of Maryland last year and adopt the international tiebreaker rule for extra-inning games, but area players and coaches have not embraced it.

Part of the debate over the tiebreaker -- in which each half-inning begins with a runner on second base -- is whether it penalizes pitchers for throwing so well in scoreless ties. No. 10 Huntingtown's 1-0, eight-inning victory Tuesday over Patuxent gave the rule's opponents more steam.

Huntingtown sophomore Kerry Hickey and Patuxent junior Ashley Frederick each were brilliant through seven innings. Hickey struck out 19, walked two and allowed only one hit -- Kelsea Bullock's one-out triple in the top of the seventh inning. Frederick, meantime, allowed two infield singles.

Huntingtown started the bottom of the eighth with a runner on second and scored the winning run after an intentional walk and two errors.

"It tells them, pretty much, 'You're pitching too good of a game. We've got to bring you down to everyone else,' " said Huntingtown Coach Mike Johnson, who opposes the rule.

The tiebreaker changes the basic strategy of a game. Rather than trying to put runners on base, teams have their leadoff batter try to bunt the runner from second base to third, and then have two outs to try to get her home.

"You're already in a bad situation," Hickey said of the tiebreaker. "You have to depend on your defense to back you up. It's pretty much [trying to] put the ball in play and seeing what happens."

Patuxent Coach Jen Bruno said she has to devote segments of practice specifically to work on executing bunting and defense in tiebreaker situations. She said that if the rule is here to stay, it should only be used after the ninth or 10th inning.

"It gives you a couple of extra chances to earn a run," Bruno said.