Big One Today at Page-State Champs Collide!

[longtimerhsfan]

The first half of the Shenandoah District regular season wraps up today as defending state D-1 champ Riverheads travels to D-2 champ Page County. The teams have a combined 17-1 record so far this season as the Panthers are unbeaten and the only RHS blemish is an early one-run loss at East Rock.

If the Panthers win today, they will remain in the driver's seat for the district title, whereas a Big Red win would likely set up a winner-take-all game when the two meet again in Greenville on the last day of the regular season.

You would assume that Page will throw their ace Williams at the Gladiators today, whereas Riverheads has not played since Monday's shutout of Harrisonburg and therefore would logically have its entire staff ready to go if needed.

The REALLY good news will be the cooperative weather. I am sure many fans remember a couple of seasons ago when everybody actually got to the field, and even got the game underway once, but gullywashers came along on consecutive days and sent everyone home. To the best of my recollection, they just decided to give up that year and canceled the game altogether.

So if you have nothing else to do this evening, head that way for what could be a classic game. Of course the truly discriminating traveler will make sure that trip includes a stop at Log Cabin for bar b q, always a requirement of any Page or East Rock road trip!!!

 

[longtimerhsfan]

Sorry for the late report. Mr. Williams delivered as advertised tonight as he struck out all nine Gladiator batters the first time through on the way to a 3-0 Panther win. To Riverheads' credit, they adjusted a little bit on subsequent at bats and broke up his no-hitter with a couple of base knocks in the fifth and sixth I believe it was.

Meanwhile the Gladiators were receiving a decent effort themselves on the mound as Casey Butler went 4 + innings before being relieved by Matthew Charles. The Panthers did not score until the fourth and even that 1-0 lead was somewhat controversial.

There was a throw to the plate as the runner went in standing up and crashed into RHS catcher Braeson Fulton. Fulton appeared to tag him out in plenty of time but the collision jarred the ball loose, allowing the run to score. But not before Gladiator coach Rodney Painter protested the call for a solid five minutes. As I understood it from fans around me, his argument was that the runner is required to slide in that scenario and therefore should have been called out.

The Gladiators then mounted the closest thing they had to a threat in the top of the fifth, as Forrest Shuey got the first hit off Williams and made it as far as second before the rally died,

Williams then led off the home half of the fifth with a triple that sneaked in just inside the first base bag and rolled all the way to the corner. However, he overshot third base and was tagged out, which led to a protest from the Panther skipper on that call. A pair of hits later that inning led to the final two Panther runs and Riverheads did not mount another threat.

The re-match in Greenville next month should be interesting, especially if Williams pitches again, because the Gladiators will know what to expect this time around. Of course the Big Red now has to hope someone knocks off the Panthers before then so as to give that game more meaning.

Regardless of what happens the rest of the season, each team looks to be quite capable of another deep run to hopefully defend those two titles. In football they say the goal is to still be playing in December......so these two still want to still be in action in June.

 

[kwhs95fan]

There was a similar situation last year in the Region A championship game. A West Point player didn't slide and if I'm not mistaken, he got ejected because of it and wasn't able to play in their state game.

 

[longtimerhsfan]

In this case, our coach put up a heck of a fight and he usually knows his stuff. But it did not change the umpire's call. At the time, it was a crucial call as the game was scoreless prior to that.