The two previous season Monticello was relatively young and somehow a way to thrive with the pressure on it. This year postseason, the second under coach Corey Hunt, the Mustangs are heading with a different swagger after edging Western Albemarle in the Jefferson District regular season finale, 6-5.
“It was one of the best high school games I’ve seen,” Hunt said. “This league, top to bottom, is highly competitive and everybody on every night has a chance to win and the team we just faced is very very good. We had to make just one more or two more clutch plays to beat them.”
After finishing second in both the regular season and Jefferson District tournament in back-to-back years to first William Monroe in 2011 and then last season to Powhatan, Monticello has a week to work before it faces the elimination pressure it’s played so well under the last few years thanks to earning a Region II bid with the win over the Western. And in the end, it came down to a sacrifice fly from Nate Fox that wound up being the difference in a game that took nearly a week to play thanks to weather delays.
“To beat such a good club, I’ve very proud of my guys for being able to go from the first pitch of that game all the way down to the last,” Hunt said.
Before resuming play on Thursday, the Mustangs had a 3-1 lead in the second inning. But the Warriors quickly made it a brand new game in the bottom of the third with two outs after a pair of walks and a 2-run single from Logan Ebanks to make it 3-3.
With both Monitcello’s Josh Malm and Western’s Jacob Rich settling in on the mound after that, it become a defensive contest until the top of the sixth inning. A leadoff single from Max Mann and RBI triple from Alex McNair broke the deadlock and put the Mustangs back out front. And RBI single from Justin Flevorakis and sacrifice fly from Fox made it 6-3 and for Monticello with Western down to its last six outs.
“We had a lot of opportunities, but we sort of squandered them,” said Western coach Skip Hudgins. “We had a lot of runners left on base and some not so good at bats. Our kids are never going to quit and at the end they gave us a chance to win, so I was proud of that.”
The Warriors made things real interesting in the bottom of the seventh. A leadoff walk to Sam Hearn and a single from Eli Sumpter gave Western a pair of runners with one out. An RBI groundout put Western to within 2-runs of the lead, but also with just one out left. After an RBI single from Jack Maynard and a walk, Malm was able to wrap up the win thanks to a pop fly to left field.
“We knew we just had to stay focused the whole game, not matter what,” Malm said. “It was different to pick up a game like that (midway though) but we tried to play with the same attitude and not change anything and keep things going. You can’t get emotional. You come in trying not to change anything.”
Both Monticello and Western earned first round byes in the JD tournament and will play at Louisa County on Tuesday starting at 5:30 p.m.
