James Wood baseball rallies to defeat Skyline

May 11, 2012
By Mark Sawyer
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The James Wood baseball team knew lots of things had to happen in order for it to finish in third place in the Northwestern District standings and avoid the play-in game with Handley in the upcoming district tournament.

First and foremost the Colonels had to beat Skyline in Thursday’s home finale.

Heading into the third and final regular season meeting with Skyline, the Colonels trailed the third-place Hawks by one game with only three remaining.

Before the game the Colonels recognized seven seniors playing their last game at R. Charles Hott field, but it was a handful of underclassmen that stole the show, rallying the home team not once, but twice to a dramatic 6-5 come-from-behind-district victory over the Hawks moving them into a third-place tie and keeping their hopes alive for a top-three finish (Skyline holds the tie breaker by virtue of their 2-1 record in the season series). Junior left fielder Andy Kennedy came up big with a hit and a pair of RBIs and classmate Addison Barber pitched two scoreless innings in relief to pick up the win, but the day belonged to sophomore first baseman Dakota Orndorff.

Orndorff’s two-run, bases-loaded single with one out in the sixth inning erased a one-run deficit and lifted the Colonels to their first win of the season over the Hawks.

Orndorff then made a spectacular, highlight-worthy catch in the top of the seventh when he chased down a foul ball near the Skyline dugout and reached over the fence to record an important first out of the inning.

“Right now we’re trying to get into that three hole,” James Wood coach Jared Mounts said. “We’re gonna need some help from Millbrook and Sherando but our guys have gotten better every game.”

If we didn’t win this game we weren’t gonna get the three hole. We had to have it to even have a chance. Our guys knew that going in and I told our seniors this would be the last game they’d play on this field so those guys went out winners.”

Through five innings the Colonels only had four hits off of Skyline starter Chaz Rutherford but that changed in a hurry.

James Wood (9-9, 4-6) had three of their first four hitters in the sixth reach. Shortstop Nick Goode singled to right and one out later Jordan Iden drove a ball to the right-center gap that appeared headed for the fence and an RBI double, but Skyline rightfielder Joe Bass made a great play to cut it off and keep the runner at third.

Rutherford then walked Kennedy to load the bases, bringing Orndorff to the plate. With the infield in for a play at the plate, Orndorff ripped a single to left to easily score pinch-runner Kacee Duggan and Iden wasn’t far behind sliding in with what turned out to be the winning run well ahead of the relay throw.

“We needed a base hit. I just stayed level on my swing,” Orndorff said. “We’d been hitting the ball all night long. We’ve been fighting all season trying to get a winning record. If we can get on a win streak here at the end of the season it’s really gonna help us out in the tournament. Hopefully we can get the third seed and stay out of the play-in game".

Orndroff and Iden each had two hits for the Colonels with Orndorff and Kennedy driving in two, and Iden scoring twice. Nick Helmick and Barry Smallwood each had of pair of hits for Skyline and Sims drove in two.