Patterson Mill baseball rewrote its script to get to Class 1A state final before falling to Brunswick, 4-1
WALDORF — Matt Roseland had his Herb Brooks moment — one line that injected new life into his once-middling team.
It was roughly halfway through the season when the 16th-year baseball coach told his team, “The 2024 script hasn’t been written on the Patterson Mill Huskies just yet.” He promised them there was more to write. And with every ensuing win, he reminded them they were still writing their script. Nothing has been taken away; their goals were still in front of them.
Roseland’s stirring, process-oriented speech helped flip the Huskies’ season. It rerouted the team from a 7-11 conference record to an appearance in the Class 1A state final Saturday as the No. 8 seed at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, which they lost, 4-1, to No. 3 Brunswick.
Patterson Mill was the underdog in its third state final appearance and first since 2016, when it also lost to Brunswick. The Railroaders won 21 of 24 games before the start of this year’s state tournament. They fielded the game’s lone Division I commit in junior shortstop Ty Kaunas, bound for Virginia Tech, who snatched up every ball knocked his direction.
“This team [Brunswick] put up 26 runs against one of the best teams in the state [Colonel Richardson], the one that was picked to win it all,” Roseland said. “So we knew their offense was gonna be tough. And their offense was tough but they didn’t hit anything really hard.”
Starting pitcher Noah Thomas recorded four strikeouts in three innings, allowing four runs. But he made the Railroaders earn everything. Senior Michael Hemelt came in for relief and pitched three scoreless innings with six strikeouts. “Pitchers did a good job and they were a tough team for a reason,” Roseland said.
Patterson Mill’s lone run came in the fifth on an leadoff double by Aiden Myers, who was brought home on a single by Mason Hemelt.
But to be competing at this stage, the last Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference team standing, is a testament to a season turned around. A script rewritten.
Hemelt, who Roseland said raised the level of the program from his first workout back from COVID in 2021, remembers when his coach first brought up the notion of the Huskies writing their own script. He turned to one of his best friends, second baseman Chase Cichoki, and said, “It’s time to flip the script. It’s time to turn it on right now.”
From that inflection point of the season forward, Roseland’s Huskies found ways to win games. Those narrow defeats — including three losses by one, two and one run over a five-day span in late April — turned Patterson Mill into a team capable of sharing the field with anyone. As Hemelt put it, “I just think no matter how good the team is, you can’t count us out. … We could play the Orioles or the Yankees, it doesn’t matter, I think we always got a fighting chance with these guys.”
Roseland thinks perhaps the penultimate game of the regular season tipped the scale. Hemelt hadn’t looked like his dominant self on the mound earlier in the year. Then he pitched a complete game gem with 13 strikeouts against a C. Milton Wright team that sprinted to the 3A state final a year ago. “That gave us the confidence,” Roseland said.
A week later, the Huskies went 11 innings with Bo Manor before closing a 7-5 win. With that, Patterson Mill penned another key moment. In the seventh inning, Roseland turned to a pitcher who hadn’t tossed a single warmup, but his coach knew he could throw strikes. He said, “Frankie, are you ready?” Junior Frankie Culotta said, “Yeah, let’s go, Coach.” Culotta got Patterson Mill out of the next two innings.
Then freshman Brycen Hunter went another two scoreless that Roseland believes proved, “This team can win in any situation, no matter what. It wasn’t one pinpoint moment. I think it just kept building and building and building.”
The Huskies’ maturation was punctuated by a 3-1 upset against Allegany in the state quarterfinal. They took a 7 a.m. bus to the opposite corner of the state for a noon first pitch and were sharp, handing Allegany just its third loss and ending its season.
There’s only so much a coach can say after watching his team battle so stoically and fall at the final stage. It’s a juggling act to reintroduce pride into disappointed eyes. His team went hit-for-hit with a powerhouse and, after the loss, hung longingly over the dugout fence to watch Brunswick dogpile at second base.
“We’ve learned that no matter how things go in the regular season that if we just keep taking steps forward and staying together, you still have a shot,” Roseland said. “It’s just a special group. You don’t get this too often. … There’s so much to be proud of.”