By Betsy Haugh / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
After enjoying a first-round bye, number one seed Albemarle Post 74 opened District 13 Tournament play in dominating fashion Friday night, defeating Staunton Post 13 by a slaughter rule score of 12-2.
“We worked hard to earn that, to get that bye,” Post 74 coach Mike Maynard said. “We were the only team that didn’t play in the (first round of the) district, which will help us. It’s really saving seven or nine innings, so that’s a big plus for our pitching staff.”
Covenant graduate Sean Rutherford also helped save some arms for Post 74, pitching into the seventh inning and allowing just two runs.
“The first two innings I wasn’t really feeling it, but then in the third inning I settled down a little bit and I started hitting some spots,” Rutherford said.
After leaving two runners aboard in the first inning, Post 74 got things going in the second, scoring four runs to jump out to the early lead.
“Our four and five hitters are up – Danny Morris (who) is leading our team in RBIs and Logan Forloines – you just think you’re going to score there in the first inning,” Maynard said. “That’s just baseball, though. But we fought back and we scored in the second inning, which was huge.”
Sheldon Shifflett connected on a first-pitch fastball to begin the bottom of the second, getting one of his three hits on the night. Ryan Morris reached base on an error in the next at-bat, moving Shifflett to third, where Thomas Stallings would drive him in on an RBI double.
Longwood-signee Joey Varaksa would keep the inning going, reaching base on a lob Staunton’s diving center fielder couldn’t quiet reach in the gap between center and right field. Stallings advanced to third on the play, with Varaksa able to take second on the throw. Both runners would score in the inning, Stallings on a passed ball in the dirt, and Varaksa on an RBI single up the middle from Eli Haden.
Post 74 added another run in the third, when a high throw attempting to catch Shifflett stealing third ended up in left field, allowing Shifflett to score.
Post 13 showed some life in the fourth when Matt Via started off the inning with a single to right field. Two at-bats later, a double to a gap in the outfield by Toby Swisher moved Via to third, giving Post 13 runners on second and third with one out. Both runners would score on an error by the Post 74 defense, cutting the score to 5-2.
Staunton showed signs of a comeback again in the fifth. With two runners on and Staunton knocking on the door, Albemarle’s Stallings caught a pop-up in foul territory and then some solid defense from Post 74 caused the third-base runner to get caught in a rundown; he was tagged out, and Post 13 ended the inning without recording a run.
“I say the biggest play of the game was the fly ball when they had cut it to 5-2 and had second and third,” Maynard said. “Stallings caught the ball and they tried to tag up, and that kind of changed the momentum cause we answered with a bunch of runs. That was anybody’s game there for a long time.”
While Post 13 would be held scoreless for the remainder of the game, Albemarle used the momentum from the top of the fifth to score five runs in the bottom half of the inning.
Logan Forloines kicked off the action for Post 74, reaching on a short, choppy ball back to the pitcher. He then advanced to second on a ball in the dirt, and stole third. Ryan Morris hammered a sacrifice fly to right field to plate Forloines.
With one runner on, Stallings blasted a shot to the fence the outfielder couldn’t reign in, scoring Jake Hendrix and reaching third himself. Stallings would then score on an RBI double from Joey Varaksa, and Rutherford would knock in Haden on one of his two doubles on the night.
Rutherford was dominant at the plate, as well as on the mound, going 4-4 with two singles, two doubles, and an RBI. He also scored a run of his own, and reached base on an error.
“I got in a position a few times with two strikes, and I was just saying ‘I’m not going to strike out,’” Rutherford said. “I just wanted to hit the ball solid just to move runners over.”
Post 74 added another run in the sixth, before a walk-off single from Colin Tucker plated Rutherford in the seventh to end the game by slaughter rule.
“We’re a little rusty – we left some runners on base early that I thought we could’ve got in, but other than that I think we played pretty well,” Maynard said.
Albemarle Post 74 will take on second-seeded Spotsylvania, who defeated sixth-seeded King George 5-3 Friday night, in the Winner’s Bracket of the District 13 Tournament Saturday night at Albemarle High in the last of three games at the site on Saturday. The first pitch is scheduled for 7 pm.
Staunton Post 13 falls to the loser’s bracket to take on the winner of Friday night’s game between seventh-seeded Fluvanna Post 2003 and third-seeded Courtland Post 55 at 4 p.m. The loser of that matchup will be eliminated from the tournament.
Fifth-seeded Orange Post 156 and sixth-seeded King George will open play Saturday at 1 p.m. in another elimination game.
