William Monroe baseball’s R.J. Payne was really jacked up Wednesday night to take the mound in the Region 3A East semifinals with a state tournament berth on the line.
“He was almost too jacked up,” said Monroe coach Mike Maynard.
But Payne managed to walk the line between too excited and just the right amount of excitement and threw five shutout innings while striking out five. In the meantime, the Dragons’ offense exploded for five runs in each of the first three innings and William Monroe rolled 17-0 over Colonial Heights.
“It meant a lot that (Maynard) had enough faith to give me the ball, it really did,” Payne said. “I was very nervous at first but after that first inning I was just pumped up. I had a lot of good energy and I just wanted to express it.”
The Dragons advance to the Region 3A East final where they’ll play Poquoson on the road Thursday night. They also earn a spot in the Group 3A state semifinals next Friday at Liberty University.
Monroe opened the first inning with three straight hits, a single by Anthony Pritchett, a double by Payne and a double by Dylan Shifflett. Timothy Eppard and Toby Collier each also had doubles as the Dragons rolled up five runs on six hits in the first frame.
“It took a lot of weight off my shoulders,” Payne said. “It made me feel like I had a few pitches that I could mess up on and still get away with the game.”
Colonial Heights’ ace Noah Murdock, a 6-foot-8 right-handed UVa signee, had thrown for the Colonials on Tuesday in a 7-5 narrow victory over Tabb. Monroe jumped all over the rest of the Colonials’ pitching staff, scoring five more runs in the second and another five in the third. The Dragons tacked on another two in the sixth.
“I’m truly at a loss for words,” Maynard said. “I know Colonial Heights threw their ace yesterday and I know he’s really, really good, but that’s part of baseball and we had a great approach at the plate. We are gelling at the right time.”
Pritchett went 3-for-4 in the leadoff spot for the Dragons, scoring three runs and stealing three bases in the process. The third inning was particularly explosive as Cody Spencer blasted a two-RBI double to right centerfield one at bat before Timothy Eppard ripped a two-run homerun to deep center. Eppard went 3-for-4 on the night and finished a triple short of the cycle.
Payne had two hits in the first two innings for the Dragons.
“He is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached, he has made himself a very good baseball player,” Maynard said. “He’s the first one here every day and the last one to leave and I know that’s a cliche but it’s 100 percent true with him. He leads by example.”
Eppard came on in relief for Payne on the mound in the sixth before freshman Blake Shifflett came on in the seventh to wrap up the night.
Payne, for his part, is thrilled that the Dragons are headed back to the state semifinals.
“We won states in 2012 in this program and from then the trend seemed to go down but this year we came together as a team,” Payne said. “We’re working hard, we’ve got a good pitching staff and we’re starting to hit well. It’s just all coming together.”
