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William Monroe baseball shocks Turner Ashby in state semifinals

Photo by Ashley Thornton

Maybe disrespect isn’t the right word. But William Monroe’s baseball team certainly felt overlooked heading into the Group 3A state semifinal Friday at Liberty.

 

Saturday’s state championship game time was reportedly moved to 4 p.m. earlier this week to accommodate Turner Ashby’s graduation Saturday morning before the Knights had even won their way into the final.

 

“We used that a little bit,” said Monroe coach Mike Maynard.

 

Turner Ashby didn’t throw ace Brenan Hanifee, who was picked by the Baltimore Orioles about an hour after the game ended in the fourth round of the MLB draft. That seemed to indicate that the Knights felt like they were certainly going to play two games this weekend. Monroe clearly thought that was a little disrespectful.

 

“I think so, we prepared for Hanifee,” Maynard said. “We used it a little bit as well.”

 

They used both those slights as fuel to knock off the Knights, widely-considered the tournament favorite, 3-0 in the Group 3A semifinals. The win propelled the Dragons to the state final where they’ll face Rustburg Saturday at 4 p.m. while ending the Knights’ season.

 

“I put in a lot of work coming into this week and it really paid off,” said Monroe senior pitcher Cody Spencer who got the win on the mound. “I was really confident. The rest of my team, they were unbelievable, they back me up 100 percent”

 

Spencer spun a complete game, two-hit shutout, including holding Hanifee in check with a pair of strikeouts and a flyout to left field. Spencer leaned largely on his defense, including a double play turned in the seventh inning that ended a potential major threat by the Knights. But the senior hurler did manage to strike out eight and gave up just one walk in addition to the two hits.

 

“Cody was a monster on the mound and he’s done that for us all year,” Maynard said of his ace who threw a perfect game back in March. “We scratched out three runs and that’s all it took the way he threw the ball. That’s something he’ll always remember.”

 

Two of those three runs came in the top of the third inning when Dylan Shifflett connected on a two-RBI double to plate Toby Collier and Tyler Trevillian who reached on a hit-by-pitch and a bunt single respectively.  

 

“I’m extremely excited, one of the greatest moments of my life,” Shifflett said. “In the first inning I had some butterflies, but if you just stop thinking about it and play your game, it’ll all go away.”

 

The Dragons added an insurance run when Hunter Foster hit into a double play in the sixth inning with the bases loaded, allowing R.J. Payne to score from third base.

 

Monroe had to scratch their way to those three runs against Trent Abernathy, who pitched extremely well, striking out nine while allowing just four hits.

 

“We prepared for Hanifee but (Trent) Abernathy is a heck of a pitcher so if Hanifee is much better than him than we might have been in trouble,” Maynard said. “But they didn’t score, and it was hard to get three runs off of Abernathy.”

 

The win gives Monroe a chance to play for the school’s first state title since 2012, when the Dragons won the Group A title.

 

“We’re William Monroe baseball, we believe we’re going to win, we have fun and I love coaching these kids,” Maynard said. “We don’t ever think we’re going to lose a game. We might not be as talented as we were in 2012 but we’ve got a big heart.”

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