Western Tech junior Curtis Robinson pitched a no-hitter in his final regular season game and he was doing it again through four innings in the Wolverines first playoff game against Hereford on Monday afternoon.
But Robinson didn't pitch the fifth inning and Mike Kline threw two innings and Jacob Wainglass struck out the side in the final inning as the Wolverines (14-0) upended the Bulls 10-3.
The win stretched their winning streak to 14 and advanced them to the Class 2A North Section II finals.
They will host Loch Raven at Southwest Academy on Wednesday, May 18 at 4 p.m.
Coach Brad Hoskin knows he wants to use all four of his pitching aces during the playoffs and he used three against the visiting Bulls (5-11).
Senior Dylan Beall is the only one who didn't pitch against the Bulls.
"I'm sticking with my plan," Hoskin said.
Robinson, an Arbutus resident, knew the plan and was prepared to go seven if needed as he did in the no-hitter against New Town.
"I did want to [go seven innings] but they said they wanted to save me for the next game in the playoffs," Robinson said.
In four innings, he had six strikeouts, two walks and one batter reached on an error.
"The starting pitcher, I was very impressed by, control-wise too," Hereford coach Ric Evans said. "He had a nice breaking ball and he threw it when he was deep in the count, 2-2, 3-2, for strikes and that's key."
Robinson improved to 5-0 using his curve ball to set up the heater.
"I try to get ahead with the curve ball so it can bait them for the fastball," said Robinson who also throws a nifty knuckle ball. "I just felt good. My arm felt good and I was just trying to get ahead with each pitch."
The Wolverines, who outscored opponents 136-19 during the regular season, manufactured a run in the first inning without a hit.
Wainglass and Beall walked with one out off Hereford senior starter Mike Adams.
Wainglass tagged up from second on a deep fly by Kline and scored after a wild throw to third.
In the third, the Wolverines made it 2-0.
Robinson drew a one-out walk and Wainglass (2-for-2, 3 runs scored) bunted him to second. Beall (2-for-2, 2 RBIs) drove him home with a sharp single to right center field.
A leadoff walk by freshman Reggie Shaw (2-for-3) led to the Wolverines taking a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth.
Jon McDonal (2-for-3) bunted him to second and, after moving to third on a ground out, Shaw scored on an error on an attempted pickoff.
"It's our own mistakes that are hurting us, the unearned runs that we give up," said Evans, who starts six or seven sophomores every game. "I told them, 'You've played solid the last three or four games and then all of the sudden today it's everything that happened early in the year to us. It's unearned runs. We beat ourselves out there."
Doubles by Wainglass and Shaw and two more Hereford errors in the fifth helped the Wolverines extend the lead to 5-1.
Hereford had scored its first run in the top of the fifth when Jack MacSherry singled and pinch runner Keegan Brush advanced when Nick D'Annuunsio reached on an error.
Brush stole third and scored after a ground out by Jimmy Danielczyk.
The Bulls made it close in the top of the sixth when they crept to within 5-3.
They took advantage of a pair of Western Tech errors and hit by Andrew About and run-scoring ground out by MacSherry.
In the bottom the sixth the Wolverines got six hits and scored their final five runs to put the game to bed.
Robinson, Wainglass, Kline, Colin Tully, McDonal and Darryl Griffin all had singles in the inning.
"They are putting the ball in play," said Hoskin, whose squad's closest game was a 6-3 win over Pikesville the first week of the season.
Only two of the Wolverines' wins were by five runs or less.
"We haven't had a challenge since the first week of the season," said Hoskin, who realizes the competition will get tougher in the playoffs. "I'll take the teams taking us lightly. I'll play the underdog. I have no problem with that. These guys have been playing this game for so long so when we get our chance it's not unusual. It's not like this is anything new to us. It's about playing together."
Hereford coach Evans hopes his squad, which had won three of four games before the loss to Western Tech, will gain some valuable lessons from this season.
"It's a year of maturity for them and now they know what to look forward to the next two years," Evans said.
Baltimore County scores
Baseball
Catonsville 7 Dulaney 2
Lansdowne 14 Frederick Douglas 4
Loch Raven 20 New Town 6
Franklin 3 Poly 1
Sparrows Point 14 Overlea 0
Eastern Tech 11 Chesapeake 1
Bel Air 12 Kenwood 1
Softball
Dulaney 10 Catonsville 0
Perry Hall 5 Bel Air 0
Lansdowne 10 Milford Mill 0
Franklin 10 Poly 0
Towson 13 Dundalk 1
Eastern Tech 20 Chesapeake 0
Sparrows Point 20 Dunbar 0
Carver 11 Western Tech 0
Hereford 3 Loch Raven 1
Pikesville 21 Seed School 7
Boys lacrosse
Bel Air 12 Dulaney 8
Franklin 12 Mervo 4
Hereford 15 City 2
Fallston 20 Loch Raven 2
Pikesville 10 Owings Mills 9
Girls lacrosse
Catonsville 15 Western 3
Hereford 22 City 2
Pikesville 17 Carver A & T 2
Sparrows Point 12 Loch Raven 5