By James A. McCray III
Prince George's County, Content Manager

Yes, the team that sports the No. 1 seed in the 4A South playoffs may have the nickname of Bulldogs, but after Monday afternoon's performance at home against the Eleanor Roosevelt Raiders; Bowie may want to consider a name change.

The 'Bunting Bulldogs' bunted their way to a 9-1 victory, using the technique throughout the game to push runners over and manufacture runs throughout.

Scoreless through 3 1/2 innings, Bowie exploded for 5 runs in the bottom half of the fourth inning, three of which came from bunting.

Bowie's T.J. Kidwell put down a bunt that just barely trickled onto the infield grass and an errant throw followed, allowing two runs to score, for Kidwell to advance to third base, and for the 1-0 lead to increase to 3-0.

"I came up in some key situations when we needed some bunts, and I laid them down," Kidwell said. " ... They made an error on the one, there wasn't anybody at first and I made it to third on that one, and it gave us a couple of runs to get out early."

Directly after Kidwell's at-bat, teammate Matt McDonald laid down an RBI sacrifice bunt to increase the lead to 5-0, much to the joy of Bowie head coach Bob Estes.

"The key to today's game was that we laid the bunts down," Estes said. "In past games we haven't been able to get them down consistently, today we did, and we caught them a little flat-footed. I don't think they expected to see as many bunts from us as they did."

Bowie put the game out of reach the following inning, as Kidwell had another bunt RBI thanks to take the lead to 6-0.

Dylan Thompson knocked in two runs on a RBI double only batters later, increasing the lead to 8-0, and the lead eventually swelled to 9-0 before the end of the inning.

"We played well enough to win, but again, we haven't played our best," Estes admitted. "We still made some mistakes in the field, and we have to iron those out."

Roosevelt scored its lone run of the game in the sixth inning on a sacrifice RBI from Brendan Cusack, but that would be the only run that the Raiders and head coach Andrew Capece would manage to get off of Bowie starting pitcher Tony Cerverizzo.

"I was hoping for a close game, and in fact, I was hoping we could break it open and maybe see a second pitcher," Capece said. " ... I didn't expect that. We are not really proud of the way we played, but I am proud of the effort."

Capece also took notice of Bowie's bunting ability, adding: "They really battle at the plate. They have good team speed, they run the bases well, and today they bunted exceptionally well and made it look easy. They put the ball in play and put it exactly where it had to be.

"We didn't handle it as well as we should have in a few situations. ... They were just a tough team and well coached."

E-mail: James A. McCray III

Bowie 9, Eleanor Roosevelt 1
Roosevelt   0 0 0   0 0 1   0
Bowie        0 0 0   5 4 0   0