EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — Hours after being shaken up watching their senior captain Cole Laursen carried off the field on a stretcher, all of his teammates on the Ocean City High School baseball team wanted to be by his side.
“Yesterday was tough; it was quiet,” head coach Andrew Bristol said Thursday after the rematch with the Egg Harbor Township Eagles. “When I knew we were going to be all right is that every single one of those kids was at the hospital last night.
“We all went to see him and we hung out there till we knew what they were going to do, so we were there until after nine o’clock last night. It was the team. I didn’t tell them to do that. They just did it.
“So that’s special, you know,” Bristol added. “This group has grown up together and they want to do some special things together. So we’re looking forward to that.”
Shaken up the day before in the 8-4 loss to the Eagles, the Red Raiders settled down and banged out 15 runs March 27 to honor their injured friend and leader.
After hitting a solo home run in the season-opening game, Laursen suffered a double fracture of the lower jaw when he and a teammate collided on the field March 26.
Laursen was badly injured, but there was one thing on his mind.
“He was in a stretcher and he said to me, ‘Can I still play?’ That’s all he cared about,” Bristol said. The coach used that as motivation for his teammates.
“I said to them, ‘You know, think about that. This kid, that’s all he cared about. We’ve got to do it for him. You know, it was important for us to get a win for him and be that rally and cry for him.
“He’s the captain and they all look towards him for that. So we’re going to count days till he gets back here and hope he’s back soon.
“It was bad,” Bristol said, “but he’ll be back and he’ll be strong.”
The Raiders did explode at the plate the next day.
Travis Large got things rolling with his home run in the third inning to help Ocean City come from behind for a 3-2 lead. The Raiders added three more runs in the fourth inning and a whopping seven runs in the fifth, plus two more in the sixth inning to end the game on the 10-run rule.
Evan Taylor had a three-run homer. Kyle Williams had his own three-run homer. Kameron Street, a double and single. Ryan Baldwin, a double and two singles. Josh Pashley, a double and a single. Colin Thompson, a single.
Josh Lenko got the win on the mound, pitching five innings. Freshman Preston Pahang closed it out.
“We were more aggressive today, I think, more confident as hitters, and that builds on each at-bat,” the coach said. “Every time somebody does something good, it kind of sparks the next guy, and I think it got contagious.”
He noted the Eagles scored first, with two runs in the opening inning, “but we didn’t panic. Travis Large had a large hit, right? And that kind of got us going. And once we got going, there was no stopping us.”
Bristol said his team dominated the little plays, which was important. “We made plays that we had to make and just kind of fed off each other after that.”
The coach added that he is fond of the format, instituted a few years ago, in which teams play each other on back-to-back days, once at home, once away.
“I like it because, especially when you lose the first one, you don’t have time to think about it. You go back out. It’s a short-memory kind of thing.
“It’s been a couple years now and I think that we have the arms to do it. So when you do have the arms, you definitely like it.”
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
