Baseball: Handley 4, James Wood 3

By Mark Sawyer
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — All season long, the Handley High School baseball team has dazzled its fans with different ways to win baseball games — most coming in spectacular comeback fashion.

But even the Handley faithful had to be wondering how the Judges pulled off their latest magical act.

Down to their final out — and even with the last out all but recorded on two different occasions — the Judges rallied for a controversial 4-3 victory over James Wood by scoring three times in the bottom of the seventh inning to walk off of Bridgeforth Field with a share of first place in the Northwestern District. “We’ve been preaching that now for a long time. Find a way to play 21 outs, compete the entire time, and never quit till it’s over,” Handley coach Eddie Simmons said. “There’s a reason why you play them all. They’re gonna stand up there and fight you and give it everything they’ve got until it’s over.”

With the win and Millbrook’s surprising 11-6 loss to Skyline on Wednesday night, the Judges (8-12, 6-2 Northwestern) finish the regular season tied for first with Sherando.

The Warriors and Judges will face off in a one-game tiebreaker tonight at 6 at Bing Crosby Stadium in Front Royal. The winner gets an automatic bid to the Region II tournament and the No. 1 seed in the district tournament.

Handley will be designated the home team by virtue of a coin flip.

Trailing 3-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh Wednesday and facing James Wood ace Matt Copley, things looked all but lost for the Judges. They looked even worse when Copley retired two of the first three hitters he faced in the inning, but then things went terribly wrong for the Colonels (3-15, 2-6 Northwestern).

Needing just one out for the win with Handley’s Cory Crenshaw on first base, Copley struck out Ryan Hayes, but the ball got past catcher Cody Vorous and all the way to the backstop, allowing Hayes to reach first.

Handley got another break when Aubrey Wilkerson’s ensuing pop up popped out of Wood third baseman Brock Lockhart’s glove, allowing Crenshaw to score all the way from second. After Wilkerson stole second, Sean Kelly beat out an infield single to short, scoring Hayes and tying the game 3-3.

What happened next may be talked about all summer — if not longer.

With the winning run on third, Handley’s Cody Unger ripped a line drive that went off the end of Lockhart’s glove and right to shortstop Jordan Iden, who threw to second base for the force out and what everyone in the ball park — including both teams — thought was the final out of the inning.

But the base umpire called Kelly safe at second, ruling that second baseman Niko Bobadilla was off the bag.

That allowed Wilkerson to score the winning run, much to the dismay of James Wood coach Jared Mounts and the rest of the Colonels.

“Umpires don’t lose games,” Mounts said. “[The umpire] said he was off the base. It’s a tough way to finish, but we should’ve never been in that situation. Games aren’t won or lost in the seventh inning. It’s doing the little things, it’s focus. That’s why you play the game. That’s why you play seven.

“Hats off to Handley. Handley’s done a heck of a job this year. Nobody expected them to do anything. I want to congratulate Handley for the season they’ve had. For a team that was not picked to do anything, they beat all the top teams.”

The Judges broke a scoreless tie with a run in the bottom half of the fourth inning on three consecutive singles to start the inning by Cody Crenshaw, Nolan Potts, and Jacob Rudolph.

A pair of Handley pitchers, Sean Goodson and Will McHugh, shut the Colonels out on one hit through five innings before Wood was able to get to McHugh in the sixth.

Lockhart and Bobadilla started the inning with back-to-back singles and moved into scoring position on a Vorous sacrifice bunt. After a pop up in the infield for the second out, pinch hitter Mitchell Prelip slapped a two-run single to give the Colonels the lead. Prelip took second on a throwing error on the play and scored to make it 3-1 on Tyler Dick’s RBI single.

“Our guys got down, [but] they didn’t quit,” Mounts said. “It’s typical of our team. There is no quit in them. They play hard, but we didn’t make adjustments early on.”

Handley outhit Wood 10-6, getting hits from nine different players and all but one starter. Rudolph led the way with two hits and an RBI. Kelly and Unger each added RBI singles.

Lockhart finished the night 2 for 4 with a run scored to lead the Colonels. Prelip was 1 for 1 with two RBIs.