With an injury to leadoff hitter Jacob Borenstein coming in practice the night before, a .400 hitter that’s had a breakout season for Albemarle, Patriots coach Jimmy Bibb quickly had to shuffle his lineup as his team readied to play Orange County. In a fine example of a bench player being ready and willing to contribute, A.J. Willy stepped into the order and put together the biggest hit in an usual game as Albemarle defeated Orange 8-2.
“The injury to Jacob set us back a bit but I think we came in saying ‘Ok, now we’ve got to have the next man up,” Bibb said. “A.J. came in and had a big hit that was huge. Someone had a chance to step in and they did their job. (The bench) works hard so we try to reward them. It’s hard to do every game but when you get the chance you do it because everyone kid on this team is a great kid that works hard.”
After getting RBI singles from Joe Burris and Zach Evans in the first inning, Albemarle went to bat in the second up 3-1 and came out with five more runs thanks to patience at the plate and an RBI single from Benny Baranik and a 2-run single from Willy. The big rally began with back-to-back singles from Lee Carneal and Timmy Aker by a Joe Burris being struck by a pitch, three straight walks and a single from Baranik. With two outs, Willy stepped up to the plate and delivered his 2-run smack to make it 8-1.
“I was up in the same situation in the first and grounded out, so I really didn’t want to do that again,” Willy said. “Last week I changed my stance because I was struggling. I was looking for a fastball, got one and then just put a swing on it and made contact.”
The second inning was an odd on for both squads as base running miscues cut short a potential rally for Orange, and curtailed Albemarle’s 5-run showing. The Hornets got caught in a pickle at home with a runner at second advancing towards third, but saw Albemarle’s defense pickup the first and second outs of the inning by tagging both runners. Then the Hornets caught a similar break during Willy’s single to get out of the inning.
Orange’s Austin Oliver came in relief with two outs in the second to get of the jam, and calmed things down by going two and two third innings. Oliver six straight batters in the third and fourth to stop the bleeding.
The Hornets offense struggled to bring in runners in scoring position. While Tony Murphy provided an RBI single in the first, the inning ended with runners on second and third after Oliver hit a double only to be followed by a strikeout. In the third the Hornets put two more runners on base with one out, but Albemarle starter Kyle Ripley got out of the jam with a strikeout and a ground out.
Orange scored in the top of the sixth when Jacob Slaughter reach base on an error and then was advanced around the field and scored on another error.
Burris came in to close the game in the seventh and needed just 10 pitches to do so, striking out the first two batters he faced on seven pitches and then picking up a game ending pop fly to Carneal.
“Joe’s probably going to through on Tuesday and he’s been off a while so we said let’s get him a little bullpen work,” Bibb said. “He was really sharp. He was ready to go. He had great velocity, good curveball.”
Orange (3-8) hosts Louisa County on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
Albemarle (9-2) heads to Colonial Forge on Tuesday at 6 p.m for critical game. After taking last week off, the Patriots won both contests this week by at least six runs to carry over the momentum the team built up before the break that include two key Commonwealth District victories. Now winners of three straight CD games, Albemarle is right back where it left off.
“This is a tough district and it’s tough to keep up what we’re doing, but as long as our team continues to play as team, and that’s what we’re doing best, we’re going to be good,” Willy said. “Coach Bibb keeps telling us that we just need our pitchers to keep throwing strikes and to play together as a team. Our pitchers are throwing strikes so we have to keep playing together.”
