Despite being very young as mentioned before, the Gladiators continue to play sound, fundamental baseball and more importantly are still swinging the heavy lumber as they roared past host Fort Defiance 13-1 this evening to run their early Shenandoah District mark to 3-0. If you include the 11-4 non-district rout over Harrisonburg that preceded those wins, RHS has now scored double digit runs in four straight contests and two of those wins, including today's, have been five-inning slaughter rule victories. They have outscored their three district opponents (Stuarts Draft, Buffalo Gap and now Fort Defiance) by a combined score of 38-5.
The Gladiators got off to a great start today when leadoff hitter Brendan Fortune hit a high fly ball to shallow right field. Three different Indians converged on the ball but it dropped in among them to give RHS its first base runner of the day. That break jump-started the rout and before the Indians could retire the side, 7 more Gladiators came to bat as the visitors raced out to an early 4-0 lead. They would go on to have two more four-run innings in the second and fifth to put the game away. They scored their 13th run in the third, leaving the fourth as their only scoreless inning. During those two middle innings, the second of three Fort pitchers, Kaden Johnson, was the only one who had anything resembling success against the Gladiator offense, as the Big Red had no trouble against the other two Indian hurlers.
Meanwhile on the other side of the ledger, Gladiator starter Logan Austin pitched an exemplary game. Although the Indians scored their only run in the bottom of the first against him, he struck out a trio of batters in that inning to keep the home team from mounting any kind of comeback. As you can tell from the score, he was not touched further and was especially sharp in the bottom of the fourth when the Indians had runners on the corner with no outs but he worked out of the jam.
However, that frame did have some bad news for the Gladiators as first baseman Henley Dunlap took a wicked hop right on the nose while trying to field a relay throw, which led to an injury time out. Word later spread through the stands that his nose was broken, but it obviously did not impact the tough sophomore but so much as he stayed in the game and contributed a hit to the Big Red's final big inning in the fifth that put the game away. With the Gladiators inactive until next Tuesday, he will have a week to start his road to recovery but based on what we have seen of his competitive nature, he may not miss a beat, even if he has to be fitted for some kind of protective facewear.
Following that break in the action, the Gladiators stretched a 9-1 lead to 13-1, and the Indians did not offer any resistance in the bottom half of the fifth. Oddly the scoreboard never registered RHS' 13th run, so some fans may have left thinking the final was 12-1 but it was definitely 13-1 and has been reported as such on the Shenandoah website.
Fans who were interested were then able to stick around and watch the Lady Gladiators pull out an extra-inning 8-6 softball win over the Fort on the adjoining diamond. That win was probably quite satisfying for RHS considering that they came into the day having lost consecutive one-run pitchers' duels. They too will be off until Tuesday when Wilson will visit the Gladiator diamonds.
For the Gladiator boys, that could be their toughest test yet in the district as the Hornets are always a Shenandoah contender. But for now the Big Red will enjoy this great start to the district race and hopefully young Mr. Dunlap will be able to continue joining in the fun.
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