THE HERNDON HIGH</b> baseball team had a successful spring break trip to Florida two weeks ago. There, the Hornets played three games at the Bucky Dent Baseball School in Dey Ray Beach.
Herndon won two of its three games in the sunshine state, defeating teams from Georgia and Massachusetts and losing to a Florida school.
"We got a lot of things done and hit the ball pretty hard," said Herndon coach Al McCullock. "We scored a lot of runs, which was good. We hit the ball real hard."
Hitting particularly well on the trip were center fielder Chris Medina, catcher Zach Leach and outfielder Allan Brownell.
"Our middle of the line-up guys are really hitting the ball well for us right now," said the coach.
Team highlights during the trip to Florida included eating at Pete Rose’s Restaurant and enjoying a Florida Atlantic college baseball game.
Since returning home, Herndon won games last week over visiting Park View, 10-9, and at South Lakes, 8-4.
Junior Mike Hitti was the winning pitcher against Park View and junior Jake Stewart was the pitcher of record against the Seahawks.
Brownell had a huge game at the plate in the win over South Lakes with a home run, triple, double and five runs batted in. The left-handed batter smacked his home run over the right center field fence.
Herndon jumped ahead of South Lakes 6-0 and never relinquished the lead.
"We hit the ball pretty well and played well [overall]," said McCullock. "We didn’t make many errors and our pitchers threw strikes."
Stewart, on the mound against the Seahawks, allowed four runs over five innings to earn the win. Davis Hall, Herndon’s No. 1 pitcher in the starting rotation, worked two innings of shutout relief.
This week, Herndon was scheduled to play Concorde District games against Chantilly at home on Tuesday and at Robinson this Friday night.