Carrasco homer highlights 15-run win at McCaskey

On the road for only the third time this season, the Manheim Township Blue Streaks took the short trip into Lancaster City on Friday afternoon to face the McCaskey Red Tornado. The Blue Streaks took all three meetings between these two teams last season, 9-6, 7-3 and 5-2.

Coming off a low-scoring effort on Wednesday, Township desperately wanted to get the offense fired up in this one. Ben Connors, leading off for the Blue Streaks, was hit by the third pitch he saw and took his base. After stealing 2nd, Connors scored on a Traeton Sauder double to left-center to give MT a very early 1-0 lead. A walk to Andrew Flury preceded a Jacob Carrasco rocket that hit the top of the fence in left field and kept on going. The freshman’s first homerun of his Varsity career made it 4-0 MT. The first-inning runs kept coming as a Christian Kleckner RBI double under the glove of the right fielder scored Kaden Kemp and had Township ahead 5-0 after the first half inning.

JJ Good, making his first ever Varsity start on the mound, got in some trouble early after a pair of 1-out walks and a hit batter loaded the bases for McCaskey. The young lefty picked up a strikeout and a fly out to left field to escape the jam without any damage. 

Thirteen Blue Streaks stepped to the plate in the top of the 2nd and the road team brought in 8 additional runs to push the game into unreachable territory. Connors led off with another HBP and Josh Boll and Sauder both were plunked right behind him. A long series of wild pitches, hit batters, and bases-loaded walks made it 11-0 before a fielding error on a Boll grounder allowed Angelo Billiard to score and make it 12-0. Before the half inning was up, Sauder picked up another RBI on a SAC fly to deep center field.

Now ahead 13-0, Good settled down in the 2nd. Allowing only two singles in the half inning, Good used three strikeouts to collect all his outs in the inning. More of the same for the Blue Streaks at the plate in the 3rd. A walk to Carrasco and hit-by-pitch for Connor Delvecchio put two men on for Billiard to hit a SAC fly to center field and score another MT run. Before all was said and done, Trey Eckman lined an RBI single into left field to bring home Delvecchio and give the Blue Streaks a 15-run advantage.

Needing 3 outs without giving up a run to end the game, Good worked his way out of a minor jam in the bottom of the 3rd to seal the 15-0 win for the Blue Streaks.

Varsity will finish out the week at Solanco tomorrow morning with an 11:00 AM first pitch while JV will head over to McCaskey to make up the game lost today from this morning’s rain.