The last time the Albemarle baseball team faced off against Fluvanna County, they absorbed a narrow defeat and got shut out. The Patriots’ offense was intent Tuesday night on making sure that didn’t happen again.
“They’re a really good team, well coached, we just wanted to really work hard and put the ball in play,” said Patriots coach Jimmy Bibb. “We’ve been struggling swinging the bats, and they’ve been working so hard, even on their own, when they’re willing to do stuff on their own, it carries over to the games.”
It certainly did Tuesday as the Patriots avenged that early season loss to Fluvanna, winning 7-5 and holding off the Flucos’ strong comeback attempt.
The Patriots struck early and got momentum on their side in the first inning. William Coleman helped get the Patriots on the board with an RBI double and later scoring on a wild pitch to give his team a 2-0 lead after the first inning. Coleman finished 3-for-5 with two doubles and a run scored on the night.
But the Patriots didn’t stop there, scoring again in the second inning on a Jacob Hensley RBI single to make it 3-0. Hensley went on to go 4-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored on the night. Then the Patriots added a couple more runs in the third on a couple Fluco errors to make it a 5-0 ballgame, and they seemed to have all the momentum in the world to cruise to a victory.
Then in the bottom of the fifth, Fluvanna flipped the script. The Flucos showed plenty of patience at the plate, and ended up batting around that inning. A John Rittenhouse RBI single, a Joseph Gomez RBI single, a Grant Brown RBI walk, and a Mark Moore two RBI double later, and the game was tied at 5.
Albemarle wasn’t done though.
“We walked five guys in that inning they scored the five runs to tie it, and going to the next inning we told them to stay back and try to drive the ball up the middle and we had some key hits with runners on base, and Garrett came in for the third time and got his third win in relief,” Bibb said.
Garrett Williams came into the game in the fifth to help stop the bleeding, and kept the Fluco bats at bay the rest of the way. Then in the top of the sixth, Coleman and Hensley reached base to start the inning before a bunt from Jack Alexander McMullan moved them to second and third. Then with one out, Jason Breen came out and knocked a two RBI single to left-center that proved to be the game-winning hit.
“I was thinking to hit it up the middle or away, it was coming in a little slow so I waited on it and drove it,” said Breen, who ended up with a 1-for-3 night with a walk and those two RBIs. Those two RBIs made it 7-5 in favor of the Patriots, and that’s where the score would stay.
For key performances for the Flucos, Rittenhouse ended up with a 2-for-3 night with a double, an RBI, a walk and a run scored. Gomez went 1-3 with a walk, an RBI and a run scored, while Moore went 1-3 with a walk and two RBIs.
After this matchup, the Patriots move on to travel to Louisa on Thursday, while the Flucos regroup and travel to Monticello the same night.
