High School Baseball: Severna Park Falcons Roll Over North County Knights

As the old saying goes, when it rains, it pours.

The skies opened up in the first inning of Wednesday’s game between North County and Severna Park. And although the rain never really amounted to much more than a drizzle, it was the Falcons who poured on the runs.

put on a hitting clinic in the first inning of their matchup with the Knights. The Falcons racked up 17 runs on 11 hits, batting through the lineup twice.

The onslaught only came to an end when Trevor Freeman—who had already scored two runs in the first—popped out to second to end the inning.

If those 17 runs weren’t enough, the Falcons also scored nine more on the day, rolling over the Knights, 26-2.

“We swung the bat very well today,” said Severna Park head coach Jim McCandless. “We’ve been a little stagnant with our offense until today.”

Not only was Severna Park on fire at the plate, tallying 20 hits on the day, but the Falcons’ Andre Haushalter pitched a near flawless game.

Haushalter hurled 3.1 no-hit innings before North County’s Cody Chester hit a two-run single in the bottom of the fourth, scoring Pat Carey from third and Matt Prince from second. That ended both the no-hit bid and the shutout.

Haushalter stayed on the mound for the duration, eventually earning the complete game win, pitching five innings while giving up just four hits and two runs.

“Sometimes it’s tough to pitch with a lead like that and stay focused,” McCandless said. “But he did a good job staying focused and throwing strikes.”

Haushalter also contributed on offense, going 2-4 with three runs. But the Falcons’ biggest bat belonged to centerfielder Connor Wells. Wells knocked in six runs while going a perfect 4-4 from the plate.

“Up and down the lineup, everyone hit the ball well today,” McCandless said.

Conversely, the Knights could not buy a base hit.

North County managed just four hits, not getting its first of the game until the fourth inning on Chester’s two-run shot. 

Chester was also North County’s lone bright spot on the mound. After the Knights gave up 24 runs with five different pitchers in just 1.1 innings, Chester came in and went to work.

“If you take one positive out of this, it is that Cody Chester came in and he actually did a pretty good job,” said North County head coach Wayne Feuerherd Jr. “He got some outs, and we needed outs bad at that point.”

Chester allowed two runs (one earned) in 3.2 innings. But by the time he went to work, the gap was already too big for the Knights to overcome.

“We didn’t show up to play, we didn’t show up to hit and we didn’t show up to pitch.” Feuerherd said. “You can blame it on anything. Bottom line, we just didn’t show up to play.”

The Falcons improved to 2-1 on the young season, while the Knights fell to 1-2.

“This isn’t North County baseball,” Feuerherd said. “I will put it that way.”