It was definitely a good night to be a Gladiator as the Riverheads' baseball and softball teams combined efforts on their adjoining diamonds and emptied all four sets of bleachers in less than 90 minutes with a pair of victories over visiting Stuarts Draft. In the surprise game of the afternoon, the Lady Gladiators run-ruled SD 12-1. I believe that is at least their third or fourth straight win. Word in the stands was that SD had won the first match-up 14-3 over at their place. It's almost enough to make you wish for a rubber match to see who really IS the best team.
As for the boys on the baseball diamond, they picked up their second 4-1 victory of the week in a game that pretty much followed the same pattern as Tuesday's win over Staunton. The teams coasted along in the early stages with a pitchers' duel, before the Gladiators used a big inning to jump out in front and hold on for the win.
As you can tell from the score, the pitching duo of Levi Dunlap (first four innings) and Brody Phillips (final three) got the job done on the mound as they kept the Cougars from any major damage. However, the visitors did not go quietly as they had men in scoring position, to the best of my recollection, in four of their seven at-bats. But Riverheads was nearly perfect on defense today and made some great plays, one in particular, to keep the Cougars from making the game closer.
If you had to name the heroes of the game, in addition to the solid pitching effort, it would be the Austin Brothers, Logan and David. Logan drove in three of the four RHS runs with a triple and a solo home run, whereas David got the Big Red bats going in the bottom of the third with a double to left field but also made the defensive play of the night when he nailed a perfect throw from right field that enabled the Gladiators to cut down a run at the plate that would have made the game 3-2 at that point.
In the very early stages, SD looked to be the sharper of the teams as they had their first threat in the second, although they failed to score. Meanwhile their pitcher (Gates I believe) mowed the Gladiators down 1-2-3 in each of the first two frames before David Austin delivered the first big hit in the bottom of the third.
His hit went over the left fielder's head and rolled to the fence, The number nine hitter, Trevor Lilley, then hit one the same direction that landed in front of the same outfielder. Those two hits came with one out and the Cougars recorded the second out before the Big Red could score. Instead of getting out of the jam, SD made a questionable decision to try and throw out a base-stealer at second, which allowed a Big Red teammate to sneak home for the first run of the game.
That gave the Gladiators the break they needed and Logan Austin smacked his triple to deep right center to drive home two runs and give the Gladiators some breathing room. The score remained 3-0 until the Cougars made their best move to get back in the game in the top of the fifth. The big base knock was a solid double to deep right that chased David Austin all the way to the fence where he made a valiant effort to catch it but could not haul it in.
The Cougars soon found themselves with runners at second and third with one out. The next batter sliced one into right field. The Cougar runner on third of course scored easily, but the Draft made the mistake of challenging DA's arm. He threw a perfect strike to the plate and the Gladiator catcher tagged the second runner a good 10 feet before he got to the plate. A 3-2 score at that point might have made for a different game.
Instead, Logan hit the Big Red's third homer of the season (brother David having hit the first and Henley Dunlap the second) to give RHS an insurance run and SD never threatened again. Still the Cougar fans had to be pleased with their team's effort as it was much better than the 12-0 shellacking they had taken at home back in the district opener.
So once again the Big Red followed its interesting pattern of having closer games at home, while absolutely bombarding the home teams in the three district games they have played on the road. In addition to the just-mentioned SD win, they have won 15-4 at Fort Defiance and 22-0 at Buffalo Gap. With their next game being a trip to Wilson on Tuesday the 30th, it will be quite interesting to see if that trend continues.
Meanwhile as for the Lady Gladiators......keep doing what you're doing!
