For Wilson, Romano Is Striking in Many Ways

Standing on the track surrounding the football field, Della Romano looked like the rest of her Wilson High teammates at practice this week. Hat pulled low, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, Romano grasped a five-pound weight in each hand and did a variety of exercises.

Romano and her teammates are different in one basic area -- she is believed to be the only girl in the Washington area playing varsity baseball -- but she has been playing with the boys so long that it simply seems natural.

Still, it was pretty cool, Romano acknowledged, to pitch for the first time in a varsity game. Romano, a right-handed sophomore, took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before finishing with a three-hitter, striking out 10 batters and leading the Tigers to a 9-1 victory over School Without Walls on Tuesday.

"Everybody watching the game, except for Wilson's fans, were like, 'That's a girl playing. You got struck out by a girl,' " said Wilson first-year coach Eddie Smith, noting that Romano grew up playing Little League with most of her teammates and private school opponents. "It's a little different on the public school side because they haven't seen a girl who can really play. She's a good player. She's one of my reliable pitchers."

Romano's three older sisters played softball, but she decided to stick with baseball because she felt she could compete with the boys. She can't remember the last time she had a girl as a teammate.

After playing last season on the junior varsity, she just wanted to do well in tryouts this spring. Smith said he was never concerned about keeping the right-handed pitcher and backup second baseman on the varsity.

"It wasn't like, 'Oh my god, you've got a girl? You're going to play a girl over me?' " Smith said. "There was no conflict whatsoever when I chose her for the varsity, which there shouldn't have been. If you're a good player, you deserve to play."

Romano often is unsure what opponents think about playing against a girl. In the postgame handshake line on Tuesday, she said, School Without Walls players simply said, "Good game," or "Good pitching."

"Most people don't say anything," Romano said. "Sometimes people don't know if I'm a girl and wonder if I'm a guy with long hair."

Seeking its 17th consecutive D.C. public school title, Wilson is 6-2-1, with victories over Landon and Gonzaga. The Tigers play Sidwell Friends and St. Albans tomorrow. . . .

No. 2 Severna Park entered the season figuring it had plenty of offensive firepower but wondering whether it had the pitching to succeed in always competitive Anne Arundel County. Midway through the season, it appears the Falcons (7-0, 6-0 Anne Arundel) have found their answers.

Dylan Taylor, the only pitcher with any previous varsity experience, is 2-0 after throwing a five-hitter with 11 strikeouts in a 6-3 victory over Northeast this past Monday. And on Wednesday, after Arundel scored seven runs in the fourth inning to tie the game at 7, Severna Park responded with a nine-run fifth as Mike Boushell hit a grand slam. Boushell finished 4 for 5 with two doubles and pitcher Sean Willey came in to close things down in a 16-8 victory.

The Falcons are averaging 9.6 runs per game. Entering the Arundel game, they had allowed just 13 runs in their first six games.

"If our pitching can hold up and our hitters keep hitting like they're doing, I think we're capable of almost anything," said Taylor, who is scheduled to pitch Tuesday against No. 1 North County.

Hitting His Stride

While players headed south for spring break, the only thing heading south for Potomac (Va.) junior catcher Edgar Quinones was his batting average, which after an encouraging start had dropped to .154 headed into the Let's Play Two tournament.

Quinones found his stroke and emerged as the event's most valuable player after going 3 for 4 Wednesday in a 7-5 championship win over Woodbridge at Osbourn Park.

This is "the first time I've ever gotten MVP in anything," Quinones said with a grin after the game.

Quinones had seven hits in 13 tournament at-bats and was behind the plate in the final for submariner Tyler Vieira, who has appeared in eight games for the Panthers (6-3). . . .

Stafford might have benefited from some otherworldly help Tuesday night in a 2-1 win over Colonial Forge, a team that has reached the Virginia AAA state tournament three of the past five years.

Sophomore left-hander Patrick Marshall entered the one-run game in the seventh inning with runners on first and third and no outs. One batter lined into a double play and the last batter grounded out. The win bumped the Indians to 7-1, 5-1 in the Commonwealth District.

Senior Matt Bohmke twice knocked in senior Ryan Brown, and senior left-hander Daniel King pitched into the seventh inning.

"Sometimes, when you're doing things the right way, the baseball gods tend to take care of you," said first-year Stafford coach Tommy Harrison, whose team's errors had resulted in a 6-5 loss to Riverbend the previous night.