By David Selig
The Winchester Star

Winchester — As his Sherando baseball teammates left the dugout at James Wood Thursday night, senior Brogan Hoover instructed each one to “be safe” over the Apple Blossom weekend.

Hoover didn’t exactly play it safe on the field, and that paid off as the Warriors defeated the Colonels 14-5 to snap a two-game skid.

A day after straining his right hamstring in practice, Hoover went 2 for 4, hitting a two-run single and legging out a three-run inside-the-park homer as the Warriors (13-3, 4-1 Northwestern District) erased an early two-run deficit and scored the final nine runs of the game. “I tweaked my hamstring and I tried to keep running on it and it just got worse,” Hoover said. “But, with the James Wood game tonight, I wasn’t about to let my team down and not play.”

Hoover was robbed of potential hits on diving plays by Kyle Hevner in right and Andrew Burnett in center in his first two at-bats.

He came up with one out and runners on second and third in a 2-2 game in the top of the fifth and ripped a ball to deep center.

Burnett misjudged the ball initially, forcing him to dive for it, and the ball got through and rolled toward the fence.

Hoover motored his way around the bases to make it 5-2, but not without some discomfort in the hamstring.

“I rounded first and was like, ‘All right, it’s good. It’s not bad,’” he said. “But as soon as I hit second, it felt like a fist just pushed through my hamstring, and it hurt. I just had to keep bearing it for my team.”

James Wood (2-12, 1-3 Northwestern) rallied to tie the score in the bottom of the fifth on a Brock Lockhart RBI single, a Daniel Garber RBI ground out and an error.

But Hoover and the Warriors came right back with two clutch hits in the top of the sixth.

With two outs and runners on the corners, Chris Gray singled home a run.

Then, following an error, Hoover came to the plate with the bases loaded.

Sherando coach Pepper Martin asked a limping Hoover if he could take him out for a pinch-hitter, but Hoover wouldn’t agree to it.

“I said, ‘Hey, if you need a pinch-hitter, I’ll pinch hit for you. I don’t want you to injure that thing further,’” Martin said. “He said, ‘Coach, I wanna do it. If I get on base, you can pinch run for me, but I want an opportunity to knock these runs in.’”

He did just that with a two-run single to left that put Sherando up 8-5, then Zach Carney added an RBI single that led to another run and a 10-5 lead on a misplay in left.

Martin put in a pinch-runner for Hoover, but the center fielder was back in his position at the start of the next half inning.

On the first play, he made a diving grab on a Matt Copley liner.

Hoover’s effort — and an Erik Albers three-run insurance double in the seventh — backed a strong performance from Carney on the mound.

Carney (3-1) allowed his second and third earned runs of the season, but he went the distance, scattering six hits and striking out six.

Colonels starter Niko Bobadilla (0-3) battled Carney through the first four innings, keeping the Warriors hitless until Carney’s single to lead off the fifth.

But, as has been the case for James Wood most of the season, a few bounces led to the game getting away.

Bobadilla could have been through the fifth unscathed, but a Gray (2 for 4, three RBIs) grounder took a high hop near short and Copley couldn’t field what may have been a double-play ball.

Dominique Porter followed with a bunt, and Bobadilla (52/3 innings, six hits, five earned runs) made an errant throw to third after fielding it.

“It kind of snowballed after that for us,” Colonels coach Jared Mounts said. “For them, it kind of gave them the momentum they needed to propel them to a good win.”

Despite the final margin, it was indeed a “good win” — certainly one Sherando needed after consecutive losses to Handley and Liberty.

“It was important for us to get off the skids a little bit,” Martin said. “We had two difficult one-run losses, and it was very important that we didn’t start falling into a pattern of being in a tight game and waiting for something bad to happen, instead of stepping up and making something good happen.”

That was the mindset Hoover took to the field, and with more than a week to rest before the Warriors host Millbrook in another key district game next Friday, he indicated it was well worth it.

“[Assistant coach Craig Bodenschatz] challenged us yesterday,” Hoover said. “He asked us if we were finished, and all of us said no. He was like, ‘Then prove it to me.’

“So, we came out here, we did what we had to do, and we proved it to him.”

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