It isn’t often that a baseball team can trot out its top starter for the first three games of the season. In fact, it’s pretty close to never. Weather delays and field recovery, however, made that possible for Western Albemarle as Jack Maynard started a trio of games for Western.
“As long as I’ve been here we’ve never had a year where our No. 1 has thrown the first three games,” said Western coach Skip Hudgins. “It’s one of those things where the circumstances are what they are.”
On Tuesday a new hurler finally got the start for the Warriors (4-0) as sophomore Sam Hearn took the hill and lead the Warriors to a 13-3 victory over Orange County. Western finally appears set to get a chance to play multiple games this week with three contests on the slate and good weather on the horizon, and they got the week off to a strong start against the revamped Hornets. Hearn was a big reason why as he threw 4.1 innings while not allowing any earned runs and surrendering just three hits in his first varsity win.
“I thought Sam did a really nice job,” Hudgins said. “I was really pleased with the way he threw the ball.”
Hearn got some help from solid infield defense too as the Warriors turned a pair of double plays. He also got a big lift from Maynard at the plate where the Western catcher posted four hits and three RBI on the night. Eli Sumpter and Dylan Weiss had three hits and two RBI apiece while Henry Kreienbaum had his fourth straight multi-hit game.
Orange fought back and scratched out three runs in the fifth inning, but couldn’t get the kind of explosive rally they needed to come back after falling into a 7-0 hole after a rough second inning. Logan Douglas and Trevor Coleman had singles in the fifth to set up the spurt.
The win sets up a significant clash with Albemarle Friday afternoon as the cross-county rivals lock up at 6 p.m.
