For the first three innings it was nothing but a strong pitcher’s duel between Western Albemarle’s Parker Morris and Nelson County’s Hunter Clemons Jr. But when Clemons came out after giving up a pair of singles to start the fourth, the Warriors came to life. Thanks to 5-inning 2-hitter from Morris and a lively fourth and fifth inning at the plate, Western started its season on a bright note by taking down the visiting Governors 11-1 via slaughter rule.
“Parker did a great job of keeping us in place, but it’s also what we’ve come to expect from him because he was by far our best pitcher last season,” said Western coach Skip Hudgins. “We had him on a pitch count to go 60 pitches. He finished with 57. What he was able to do, to keep us from throwing someone else, that was huge because we’ve got two more games this week.”
Morris was perfect through four and a third innings, giving up his only two hits — a single to Clay Clarkson and an RBI double to Randy Taylor — in the fifth inning. The sophomore piled up eight strikeouts on the day and did not issue a single walk.
“All my pitches were working for me today and I was confident,” Morris said. “I knew things were going to work well warming up in the bullpen. (Flirting with a no-hitter) is nice your first time out, but I wasn’t thinking much about that during the game.”
Sandwiched in between the top of the fifth when the Nelson picked up its lone run were a 4-run bottom of the fourth and a 7-run rally to end the game in the fifth for Western.
The Warriors had just one hit and one walk on Clemons in the first three innings, but started off the fourth with a single from Steve Mangrum. A throwing error on a pickoff move allowed Mangrum to slide over to third. John Mark Mastakas capitalized on the RBI opportunity with a single to put Western on the scoreboard. After Clemons stepped out, the Warriors picked up an RBI double from Logan Ewbanks, an RBI sacrifice fly from Tanner Knight and an RBI single from Eli Sumpter.
“We decided we needed more runs so we changed our approach to be more aggressive at the first strike we saw,” Mangrum said. “We were looking for first pitch fastballs and reacting to that.”
In the fifth, the Governors were hit hard by errors in the field. Once again Mangrum started the inning with a single. Two errors inbetween a sacrifice bunt gave Western a 6-1 lead. Then an RBI single from Morris was followed by a 2-run single from Jack Maynard to set up Mangrum’s big hit. With a pair of runners on base Mangrum cranked a shot into the gap in right center to come away with a walkoff, 2-run triple.
“Steve did a great job of jump starting both those innings,” Hudgins said. “Hitting is a contagious thing and he got that started. We had a couple of timely hits and of course that big hit in gap, that puts us here (cooling down) instead of still playing.”
For Nelson, coach Scott McGarry was happy to see Clemons throw with great success for the first half of the game.
“Hunter was someone we used sparingly last year, but we need him this year after losing Trevor Martin,” McGarry said. “He’s stepped up already, pitched great in a scrimmage and great here today. When we step into our bullpen though, that’s something we still need to figure out.”
The Governors defense was sound through the first four innings with only one error in the field. However, the combination of facing Morris and making costly mistakes on defense in the fifth proved too much to overcome.
“We’re moving people around and we just need to be able to plug away and make plays for whoever is up there throwing strikes for us,” McGarry said. “Western was a little ahead of us with the bats, but that had a lot to do with their pitcher. (Morris) had great stuff, great off speed, great breaking balls. That’s a good arm.”
This was the season opening game for both teams. Both these two resume play against one another on Thursday, this time at Nelson at 5 p.m.
