A week removed from winning a fifth straight District 13 title, Albemarle Post 74 kicked off the opening round of the Virginia American Legion Baseball tournament by taking apart Vienna Post 180 in seven innings 14-2.
“I think that was the best baseball game we’ve played all season,” said Albemarle coach Mike Maynard. “Jack Maynard threw great for us, Trey Lam did a good job of finishing up the game. We had a lot of timely hits and guys were getting down bunts. Eveyone seemed to contribute, one after another. We had a lot of guys step up. I thought we ran the bases well. It was all around good game.”
Jack Maynard earned the win with his six innings of work on the mound. The Western Albemarle rising senior gave up just one earned run and struck out eight batters.
Conversely it was a busy day at the plate for Albemarle. Austin Batten had a huge game, going 3 for 4 with a double and four RBI. Kyle Vidano also had three RBI and a double. Both Jordan Gentry and Keegan Woolford scored three runs with Gentry going 3 for 5 and Woolford finishing 2 for 3.
With the win Albemarle heads into the winners bracket of the tournament where it will face Roanoke Post 3 who defeated Newport News in nine innings, 12-6. Making the start for Albemarle will be Austin Turner.
“We’re going to give the ball to Austin and go to Jordan after that,” Mike Maynard said. “We’re real happy with the win today but we’d really like to get to that 2-0 bracket. We’re just going to have to throw strikes to do that. But we’ve got 17 guys who came out, and that’s a lot. I’m happy about that and so we’ll see what happens from here.”
