PRINCETON: Hun baseball edged in finale

Blair stops Raiders for Prep A championship

By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
   In time, Bill McQuade knows his players will look back and realize just how much they accomplished this past season.
   ”The guys had a great season,” said McQuade, the long-time Hun School baseball coach, whose team dropped a 6-3 decision to Blair Academy in the state Prep A final on Tuesday.
   ”We knew we had a lot of talent. Looking at it and saying how did this season get so good? It got good on the backs of kids that rose to the occasion. We didn’t necessarily expect much from them because we didn’t know about them. We had veteran guys hitting over .400, but it takes a team to win. And these guys showed what you can do when you play as a team.”
   The Raiders had put themselves in good position to win the title by capturing their first two games of the double-elimination tournament. But Blair won on Sunday to force a deciding game on Tuesday for the title.
   Hun jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Brett Ender singled home a run with two outs in the first. But Blair responded with two runs in the second and another in the third for a 3-1 lead. The Raiders tied the game in the third on a two-run home run by Steve Wells.
   The score stayed tied until the top of the sixth when Blair plated a pair of runs. The Bucs added another run in the top of the seventh for a 6-3 lead. Hun loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the seventh but could not push another run across the plate.
   ”We had some injuries, but that is no excuse because they lose people too,” said McQuade, whose team finished 16-7. “But we stepped up and played. Unfortunately we just couldn’t push across a few more runs. I felt like we were going to get them. Their pitcher was around the plate all the time. He wasn’t necessarily overpowering, but we had a lot of pop ups.”
   Wells and Ender had three hits apiece for the Raiders, who finished with 10 hits on the day.