Louisa baseball’s Tristan Snyder leaned on some conventional wisdom from a classic source on the mound Tuesday night.
“My dad always told me you’ve got a team behind you, you might as well use them,” Snyder said. “I’d rather throw a three-pitch inning than a nine-pitch inning.”
That approach worked as Snyder pounded the strike zone and threw a no-hitter to beat Monticello 5-0. Snyder struck out eight and walked just three to secure the road win for the Lions.
“Him and Lliam (Grubbs) both have been outstanding this year and Tristan was on tonight, pumping strikes,” said Louisa coach Kevin Fisher. “I didn’t know he had a no-hitter until the seventh and someone hushingly, quietly, brought it up.”
Snyder stepped on the mound with a two-run lead thanks to a two-run Matt West homer on the game’s second at-bat. West’s blast held up as the gamewinner, though Louisa tacked on three more runs in the third when Monticello walked in a run and then Owen Agee blasted a double to plate Snyder and Tyler Early.
Outside of those two productive spurts though, the Lions’ bats were relatively quiet, with just three hits on the day as C.J. Houchens threw well for Monticello in the final 4.1 innings. He surrendered that double by Agee right after entering the game but from there gave up just one walk and no hits.
“I thought we should have been more aggressive at the plate, we haven’t been as aggressive at the plate as I’d like to see the last two games especially,” Fisher said. “Earlier in the year we were spraying it all over the field. We need to pick that up a little bit more.”
The Lions’ defense, however, played error-free baseball and turned a trio of double plays to help clamp down on all three baserunners that Snyder allowed on the three walks.
“When you’ve got a team behind you and you’re throwing strikes it makes it a whole lot easier — fastball was working a lot today,” Snyder said. “We’ve got to throw strikes, make it through the game and then make it to the next game.”
The Lions are on to the next one now. They’ll face Orange County on the road Thursday. Monticello will travel to Powhatan the same night.
