Brunswick pitcher Jason Ricketts gave up just three hits while striking out nine Francis Scott Key batters to lead the visiting Railroaders to an 8-1 win in Uniontown yesterday.
Ricketts dominated, effectively mixing a nasty curveball with a hard fastball to keep the Key batters guessing.
The Brunswick offense, meanwhile, had 12 hits and took advantage of a few costly errors.
Three-time defending state champ Brunswick (2-1) got things started in the third with three runs off John Engel.
Consecutive one-out singles by Matt Morton, Ricketts and Greg Barnes loaded the bases.
Dwayne Stockman followed with a sharp grounder to short that skipped past Kyle Stephenson and enabled Morton to score.
Jeremy Lowery drove in Ricketts with a sacrifice fly, and a second error by Stephenson scored Barnes to give Ricketts all the run support he needed.
"We didn't help ourselves much and made a few errors that you just can't afford to do against a team like that," said Key coach Bob Caples.
"I thought up to that point [the third inning], we stayed with them pretty well and then our spirits went down and couldn't get back into it."
The Eagles (2-2) got their only run in the fourth. It came after Brunswick had padded its lead to 4-0.
With one out, Engel was hit by a pitch from Ricketts. Joey Brook moved Engel to third with a single.
With two outs, Brook stole second and the ball got away from second baseman Willie Minnick, enabling Engel to score.
Brunswick would add a run in the fifth, two in the sixth and one in the seventh while Ricketts cruised to the complete-game win -- retiring the last six batters.
He also had three singles and scored two runs.
But it was Ricketts' stuff on the mound that seemed to impress Caples most.
"He was just really tough," Caples said.
"He kept the ball down and really mixed up his pitches well. He was very much in command."
It was the third game of the week for the Eagles, who used four pitchers in the game.
L "We were tired with the three games this week," Caples said.
"I thought John [Engel] and Jason [Smith] pitched with a lot of heart. If we would have had Jason fresh from the start, it may have been a different story.
"He has the ability to go pitch for pitch with Ricketts."
Rick Hooper had two of the three hits for Key.
Morton and Jeremy Lowery both had two hits for Brunswick.