Morford fires Larkin past St. Edward
After weeks of practice, mostly indoors, every high school player is just itching for that first game of the season, but probably none more than Larkin senior Seth Morford. A broken finger ended Morford's junior season after just 4 games.
On Friday the right-hander returned to the mound in triumphant fashion, firing a 3-hit shutout in a 10-0 5-inning slaughter rule win over visiting St. Edward.
Morford got plenty of offensive support with Zach Edgar leading the way. Edgar went 3-for-3 with 4 RBI.
"It felt so good to be back out here," said Morford. "I really missed it and couldn't wait for the season start. I felt really good. My team got me a nice lead and all I had to do was focus on throwing strikes. I just kept pounding the outside corner."
Morford only had 2 strikeouts, but did not walk a batter. The 3 hits he allowed were scattered in different innings and the Green Wave did not get a runner past second base.
"He did a great job of throwing strikes and putting the ball in play," Larkin coach Matt Esterino said. "Except for a couple harmless errors I thought we played solid fundamentally. We made some nice plays on defense and were able to get some bunts down and produce some runs. It's good to get that first one over and come away with a win.'
The Royals opened the scoring with a run in the first on an RBI double over the center fielder's head off the bat of Kordell Thomas. The Royals added 3 more runs in the second inning. Edgar had the big blow with a 2-run double to left-center.
"We came out with the mindset of being aggressive at the plate and on the bases," Edgar said. "We got right to it. Last year I found myself hitting too much off my front foot, so this year I have been working on staying back and driving the ball. I feels like the work is paying off.'
Edgar was also right in the middle of a 6-run fifth inning that ended the game early with a 2-run single down the right field line.
"He's our leader," Esterino said. "He is a three-year varsity starter and he has really stepped up to that leadership role this season. He's obviously off to a great start."
Thomas added a 2-run walk off single in the fifth inning to finish the day 3-for-3 with 3 RBI.
St. Edward, already short on experience having graduated all its starters from a year ago, was missing 5 starters from this years lineup because of a weekend church retreat.
"It was a great chance to get some of our other guys some experience," said St. Edward coach Tim Dovichi. "We know we have a big learning curve. Hopefully we can take something away from this. We like to play these bigger schools to get our guys used to playing good competition. Larkin has a good team and they played well today and deserved to win."
Tyler Holte took the loss on the mound for the Green Wave.