Wood Baseball Bounces Back With 7-4 Victory Over Fauquier

Posted: April 24, 2014
By MARK SAWYER
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — One of the best things about baseball is generally you don’t have to wait a week in between games, and for the James Wood baseball team that was really good news.

Less than 24 hours after being humbled by Sherando, the Colonels rebounded with a solid outing and got back to their winning ways with a very satisfying 7-4 victory over visiting Fauquier Wednesday night at R. Charles Hott Field.

James Wood (8-3) banged out nine hits after getting only three the night before, and rode the left arm of starting pitcher Carder Smith to a 7-1 lead after four innings and then held off a late Falcons’ charge to pick up the victory.

“We did come back. We bounced back [from Tuesday night],” said James Wood coach Brent Lockhart. “It was like night and day tonight. We came out and swung the bats real well. We just did an excellent job, we hit the ball where it was pitched tonight. We hit opposite field, hit the ball on the ground, we hit line drives. We just didn’t make as many mistakes as we did last night and we gave ourselves a chance to win.

“It was definitely a big difference in tonight’s performance from last night’s performance. If we can just get this team to show up like that every night we’re gonna have a real good chance of playing really well against whoever is in the other dugout. Defense has been our bread and butter all year. If we play solid defense and put the ball in play — we’ve got a chance to win.”

Smith was in control most of the night, only getting into a couple of jams. He was able to get out of one, but on the other he needed some relief help. He worked 5 2/3 innings, allowing four runs (only one was earned). He scattered four hits, walked one and struck out six.

In the second inning Smith walked the leadoff hitter and one out later a hit followed by an error put runners on second and third with just one out. Smith met the challenge head on, striking out the next two hitters to end the threat to keep the game scoreless.

“Carder Smith did an excellent job tonight,” Lockhart said of his lefty. “It’s been a while since he’s been on the mound, He threw a solid almost six innings. He did a great job of mixing his speeds up and throwing strikes.”

With things under control on the mound, the Colonels’ offense went to work in support of their left-hander.

The Colonels — who have won four of their last five — broke the scoreless tie with a four-run third and then added on to their lead with three more in the fourth, jumping out to a comfortable mid-game lead.

Right fielder Brady Hepner led off the third with a base hit and moved to second when Conor Babington reached on an error.

KaCee Duggan drove in the first run of the game with a sharp single to left. Babington came home to make it 2-0 on a balk, and Duggan scored when Dakota Orndorff’s grounder was misplayed. Orndorff later scored in the inning on Nick Goode’s RBI single to make it 4-0.

Fauquier (5-3) got a run back in the top of the fourth when starting pitcher Ryan Simpson tripled with one out and scored on a groundout to make it 4-1.

Wood answered in its half of the fourth to build a six-run lead.

Back-to-back singles by Kristian Malsch and Hepner started the inning and the two moved up on a sacrifice bunt by Babington. Duggan followed with his third hit of the game, driving in two more runs. Duggan moved to second when the ball was mishandled in center field and later scored the Colonels’ final run of the game one out later on a single by Orndorff that stretched James Wood’s lead to 7-1.

Smith didn’t get into trouble again until the sixth inning and that should’ve been a three-up, three-down inning for him had it not been for a pair of errors. Instead, he gave up three unearned runs on two hits before giving way to Orndorff out of the bullpen. Orndorff finished the game for the save.

One night after going hitless at the plate, Duggan more than made up for it, finishing 3 for 4 with three RBIs, two runs scored and a stolen base to lead the Colonels.

“I thought we came out and hit the ball really well early to get a big lead,” Duggan said. “Carder pitched really well and we did what we needed to win. We didn’t want to come out and lose two in a row at home, so I think we were all really wanting to put a beating on them.

“We did a good job putting the ball in play when we needed to. Getting runs early I think gave us a little momentum and the bats came alive. Our defense played really well and helped us maintain the lead. It was a good team effort.”

Wood outhit the Falcons 9-5 with six of the nine starters getting at least one hit. In addition to Duggan, Hepner had two hits and scored twice, and Orndorff had two RBIs.