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The Rockbridge County High School baseball team split a pair of games last week, earning a 16-6 home win in six innings over James River last Wednesday before coming up short 3-1 in a Valley District game at Spotswood.
Against James River, the Wildcats racked up 16 hits while holding the Knights to six. Both teams ended the week with the same overall record, 6-9.
The Wildcats took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Derek Smith doubled on a line drive to center field to bring home Clay Irvine, and Cohen Paxton singled to right field to drive in Smith.
RC added three more runs in the second. Nolan Stines scored on an error by the JR catcher, and Irvine scored on a sacrifice fly to center field by Smith. Hopkins then singled on a line drive to left field to bring home Paxton, making it 5-0.
The Knights cut RC’s lead to 5-2 in the third when Colin Cook doubled to center field to drive in a pair of runs.
The Wildcats answered in the bottom of the third when Trevor Hoke scored on a groundout. Later in the inning, Smith singled to center field to bring home Drew Potter and Brady Majors, and Stines stole home on the next play to extend RC’s lead to 9-2.
JR trimmed the lead to 9-4 in the fourth when Logan Joyce singled on a line drive to left field to bring in a pair of runs.
In the sixth, the Knights scored two more runs to cut the lead to 9-6. Cook doubled on a fly ball to right field to drive in Hunter Mays, and Cook then scored on a passed fall.
The Wildcats had one more scoring surge in the seventh, scoring seven runs.
Stines singled on a line drive to left field to bring home Potter, and Irvine walked with the bases loaded to drive in Price Lunsford. Majors then scored on a sacrifice fly to left field by Smith, and Paxton doubled to right field to bring home Stines and Irvine. Hopkins singled to left field to drive in Paxton, and Potter singled on a line drive to center field to bring home Hopkins, ending the game early due to the 10-run mercy rule.
Thomas Armstrong led the Wildcats with three hits, while Smith, Paxton, Hopkins, Potter and Stines each added two hits. Smith paced RC with five RBIs, and Paxton brought in three runs.
Cook led JR with three hits. The Wildcats and Knights each used four different pitchers.
Paxton pitched the first inning for RC, allowing no hits, no walks and no runs. In the next three innings, Sean Martino struck out one and surrendered five hits, one walk and four runs (three earned). Bennett Bishop pitched the next inning, striking out two and allowing no hits, no walks and no runs. In the sixth, Zac Majors struck out one and permitted one hit, no walks and two unearned runs.
Pleased with the depth of his team’s pitching, RC head coach Travis Roadcap said, “We have saved all of our arms throughout the year and have not overworked any athlete. We at Rockbridge believe that we need to have around 10 pitchers who can come in at any moment and compete, not three to four and overuse kids. We rarely run a kid on the mound above 90 pitches, and hopefully having everyone healthy and available late season/ postseason will pay off.”
“It certainly has helped us having freshman Bennett Bishop back in relief after he was out [due to an injury] over half the year,” added Roadcap.
RC committed three errors and JR had two.
Spotswood 3, RC 1
The Wildcats challenged Spotswood before falling 3-1 on Friday in Penn Laird. With the loss, RC fell to 1-4 in the Valley District.
Spotswood (12-6 overall, 6-1), completed a sweep of the regularseason series with the Wildcats. When the teams met on April 18 at RC, Spotswood won 11-4.
In the rematch, the Trailblazers took a 2-0 lead in the second. Spotswood’s Jackson Moyer singled on a grounder to second base to bring home Matthew Craig, and Moyer scored on an RC error.
The Wildcats cut the lead to 2-1 in the fifth when Stines scored on a groundout by Irvine.
The Blazers scored the final run of the game in the fifth when Andrew O’Brien ran home on a sacrifice fly to left field.
Spotswood pitcher Ben Moyer, who has committed to play Division I baseball for Samford University next year, struck out five of the final six RC batters he faced. Moyer pitched the final two innings for the Blazers. In addition to the strikeouts, he allowed no hits, no walks and no runs.
The Blazers’ starting pitcher was Brady Hoover. In five innings, Hoover struck out seven and surrendered two hits, two walks and one unearned run.
Paxton pitched the first 4.2 innings for RC, striking out three and allowing three hits, one walks and three runs (two earned). In the final 1.1 innings, Bishop struck out two and surrendered no hits, no walks and no runs.
Jackson Moyer led Spotswood with two hits and had an RBI, and while Irvine and Paxton each had a hit for the Wildcats.
RC committed three errors, while Spotswood had none.
Roadcap said he was “proud of the way we competed against Spotswood, a state tournament team last year and threw their best two guys. We battled. I know we can compete with anyone in our region, and our district is the best in the state in [Class 3]. We’re right there – just got to take the next step.”
The Wildcats were scheduled to play at James River on Monday before playing host to Turner Ashby on Tuesday. With their eyes on advancing to the Region 3C tournament, they’ll conclude the regular season with a pair of district games, at Broadway on Friday at 5:30 p.m. and at home against Harrisonburg on Monday at 5 p.m.
