Cullman Takes Down Huntington Beach At NHSI

CARY, N.C.—Capitalizing on the momentum it gained from a big win less than an hour before its second game of the day, Cullman (Ala.) High kept rolling with a 6-2 victory over the Huntington Beach (Calif.) High on Thursday night in National High School Invitational action.

In support of a strong outing from Mississippi State commit Will Morrison, Bearcats center fielder Owen Lovell notched his second multi-hit contest of the day, one of three Cullman batters with two knocks in the game. Third baseman Noah Fondren led the offensive charge, driving in three runs, with DH Jacob Heatherly adding one RBI.

“It let the guys exhale a little bit, getting that first win over here,” Cullman coach Brent Patterson said. “They’ve got a lot of pride and they want to show people what kind of team we are. So, a lot of things went well, and baseball’s funny, so it was good timing.

“We had a guy who was a great matchup against them on the mound and a lot of things went our way. We hit some balls where they weren’t and it snowballed from there.”

Morrison kept his team in the game, throwing seven strong innings and allowing two runs on four hits with two walks and two strikeouts. The junior righthander held Oilers top prospects Hagen Danner and Nick Pratto to just one hit total, an infield single for Danner, a UCLA commit, and walked each hitter once.

“He commanded both sides of the plate, he had movement to both sides of the plate, and we tried to make an adjustment in the box but he was just filling up the zone,” Huntington Beach coach Benji Medure said of Morrison. “He was down in the zone and we were hitting a lot of balls into the ground, and he was just tough.

“He was tough. We haven’t really faced a three-quarter (slot) guy like that, who’s that firm, and he was tough on us. You’ve got to give him credit because we’re a pretty good-hitting team and he made us look pretty silly today.”

Patterson got exactly what he expected out of his young righty in the team’s third matchup of the event, and couldn’t have been happier to get back to what felt like the norm for his squad.

“He’s funky,” the Bearcats coach said. “Funky arm slot, and it goes all over the place. He’s got a lot of run and sink on good days, and he got a lot of ground balls early and he had late life. It’s so different.

“High school hitters don’t see it a lot and he was really, really feeling it in the first four innings and then in the fifth he just (lost) his changeup a little bit and then probably the most proud of him because in the sixth he totally lost the feel of all three and just had to figure it out . . . For him to figure it out, in the heart of their lineup was, it was big for us.”

Huntington Beach lefthander Dylan Ramirez allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits in three innings with a walk and two strikeouts. Sam Blodgett came on in relief and allowed three runs (two earned) on two hits with a walk, recording two outs before 2019 lefthander Joshua Hahn came out of the bullpen.

Hahn impressed in his 2.1 innings of work, moving the ball and getting his fastball up to 88 mph. After hitting the first Cullman batter he faced, the uncommitted lefty recorded seven straight outs, fanning three.

“If we would have been smart, if we were really, really good coaches, then we would have put Hahn in a lot earlier,” Medure said. “Because the velo was tough on their bats and he commanded both sides of the plate, which helped. He’s a special kid. He’s going to be really, really good the next couple of years.”

Cullman’s second win was even sweeter than the first, and they hope to keep it going for their last matchup of the tournament.

“The competition at this tournament is absolutely incredible . . . ” Patterson said. “We’ve been hearing about those two guys (Pratto and Danner) for a long time, and so it was big to beat a team like that. And we’re from small-town Alabama, so that was a big matchup and we were fired up about it.”