WALDORF, Md. -- The 6-seeded Parkside Rams' came into their Maryland 2A Baseball State Title game matchup as the underdogs, going up against the 1-seeded Patuxent Panthers.
They certainly didn't look like it, though.
It's hard to believe that Parkside will be underdogs next season, as they took home the program's first ever state title with a 3-1 win on the back of a stellar complete game pitching performance from starter Aidan Brinsfield.
It took until the top of the third inning for the game's scoreless deadlock to break - when Casey Parsons delivered a clutch two-out RBI single to left field to put the Rams up 1-0.
That lead was expanded in the following fourth inning, where Parkside got another two-out RBI hit; this time from Tyler Janeski to give the Rams' a 2-0 cushion.
That would be all the scoring Brinsfield would need, as he was locked in right from the first pitch. The Senior ace of the staff finished in double-digit strikeouts. In fact, the only run he allowed was on a strikeout - a swinging strike three in the dirt, which allowed Patuxent's Nick Boswell to scamper home from third on the catcher's throw to first base going for the force out.
Outside of that, the biggest trouble Brinsfield ran into was in the bottom of the sixth. After the Rams picked up a key insurance run on a Storm Hartman RBI squeeze bunt in the top half, the Panthers looked to be rallying with two outs; getting runners on second and third as the go-ahead run stepped to the plate.
However, the Senior answered with the biggest strikeout of the day - firing up Brinsfield and his teammates, along with creating the second-largest crowd pop of the day from the Parkside faithful that made the two-and-a-half hour trek from Salisbury to Waldorf.
The largest crowd pop of the day from the Parkside crowd? Well, that was a result of the final out - a 4-3 groundout in the bottom of the seventh that capped off the Rams' first ever state title.
