Severna Park senior right fielder Tom McCarthy had never hit a home run in his entire baseball career, going all the way back to his Little League days.
So Thursday's 2 1/2 -hour weather delay before the Anne Arundel County baseball championship against visiting North County was seemingly nothing, instead proving to be worth the wait.
McCarthy's three-run shot in the bottom of the fourth inning was the biggest of four home runs the No. 3 Falcons relied on to come away with a 7-5 win over the No. 10 Knights and the program's eighth county championship.
"Yeah, that was my first - it is kind of crazy," said McCarthy. "It's unbelievable. I never felt anything like it and especially in a game like this."
North County (13-4) had taken a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth when senior catcher Dino Stevens hit a two-run home run over the center-field fence. But the Falcons (16-2) answered with five runs in the bottom of the inning, with McCarthy's unexpected blast with two on and one out as the key.
North County shortstop Mike Schmidt hit a run-scoring double to cut the lead to 7-5 with two outs in the seventh, but Falcons senior pitcher Dylan Taylor struck out Jake Thiess to close out the win.
The game was to be played at Joe Cannon Stadium last night, but the rain sent the game to Severna Park's diamond for a 2:30 p.m. start. After work all morning to get the field ready, a brief early-afternoon shower delayed the game until 5 p.m.
"We definitely wanted to play this game. Coach [Jim McCandless] was preaching all day we were going to get it in and we're glad we did," said Taylor, who improved to 6-0 and beat the Knights for the second time.
Track and field
Katie Harman helped No. 2 River Hill easily repeat as champions at the Howard County title meet at Long Reach, and Mount Hebron's depth let its boys also win for a second straight year.
Harman ran on the victorious 3,200-meter relay team and also pulled off the difficult task of sweeping the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 to help the Hawks repeat as team champions with 118 points. Long Reach finished second with 80.
"We all are really supportive of each other," Harman said. "It's just good to know that everyone's working hard together."
The Mount Hebron boys also didn't have much trouble taking the team title, literally running away with the meet to finish with 140.6 points, easily outdistancing Centennial (59).
The Vikings won five of the 18 events but loaded up with multiple top finishers in several events.
"Everybody contributed, and it was a good day," said Mount Hebron coach Paul Ulrich. "We had a lot of depth."
Atholton's Graham Bazell won a pair of tough distance races, edging teammate Michael Lynch by four seconds in the 3,200. Bazell also took the 1,600 in 4:20.28, nipping Craig Morgan from River Hill (4:24.93).
Jeff Seidel
Softball
No. 7 Hammond 10, Central 0: : Right-hander Stephanie Speierman (14-2) threw five innings, gave up one walk, hit two batters and struck out 13 as the host Golden Bears (14-2) no-hit Central-PG in the opening round of the Class 2A South regional. Hammond faces the winner of Southern/Patuxent on Monday at 4 p.m.
