For nearly all of its Region B quarterfinal game on Memorial Day in Falls Church, George Mason’s baseball team showed the winning form that had carried the Mustangs to the regular season championship of the Bull Run District. But with Mason leading 2-0 in the seventh inning and needing only one more out to clinch victory, Central-Woodstock’s Kohly Hawkins hit a two-run single that tied the game.
For nearly all of its Region B quarterfinal game on Memorial Day in Falls Church, George Mason’s baseball team showed the winning form that had carried the Mustangs to the regular season championship of the Bull Run District.
But with Mason leading 2-0 in the seventh inning and needing only one more out to clinch victory, Central-Woodstock’s Kohly Hawkins hit a two-run single that tied the game.
The Falcons got two more hits and another run in the eighth inning, then shut the door when Mason came to bat, leaving the Mustangs on the disappointing end of a 3-2 score.
Sophomore Stephen Lubnow scored both of Mason’s runs. One was in the first inning, when he hit a leadoff single and eventually came in as junior Paul Weber kept Central’s right-side infield occupied with a grounder.
In the third inning, Lubnow led off with a bunt single, stole second, then scored when sophomore Max Kaplow doubled.
Other than that, base runners were hard to come by for Mason, as Falcons pitcher Will Trelawny threw a complete-game six-hitter with six strikeouts.
Kaplow got one more hit, a single, and seniors Michael Wolfe and Evans Mandes each singled, but in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, the Mustangs went down 1-2-3.
Mason senior Brian Lubnow pitched seven innings of four-hit ball, striking out seven, then his classmate Tyler Roth finished the game.
The game closed the high school baseball careers of six Mason seniors: Wolfe, Mandes, Roth, Lubnow, P.J. Anderson and Quinn Casteel.
In their final campaign they led Mason to a 15-8 record and the school’s first Bull Run baseball championship since 2006.
Next year, Mason expects to return a core of regular starters — Stephen Lubnow, Kaplow, Weber, and Tyler Duncan — as well as several reserves who saw varsity playing time this year, including Jon Freeman, Jack Trainor and Chris Horneman.
