Peacoe Powers Wood Past Eagles 9-6

Posted: April 4, 2014
By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI

WINCHESTER — Kierstyn Peacoe’s strained left medial collateral ligament is visibly affecting her pitching.

But if you only saw her at the plate, you’d think she was perfectly healthy.

Five innings after leading off the game for James Wood with a one-hop blast off the center-field fence for a double, Peacoe saved the fence some damage by hitting the ball several yards over it in left to break a 6-6 sixth-inning tie and propel James Wood to a 9-6 non-district win over Clarke County Thursday.

Peacoe’s home run capped a wild game that saw Clarke County lead 3-0 after two-and-a-half innings, James Wood lead 6-3 after four, and the Eagles tie the game at 6-6 in the sixth before the Colonels (2-4) scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth to get the cushion they needed to hand the Eagles (5-1) their first loss of the season.

James Wood also earned a season-split of its series with Clarke County with the win, this after nearly rallying to beat them in the first matchup. The Eagles led 10-2 after four innings before holding on for an 11-10 win in Berryville on March 22.

“This is definitely something that we needed,” said Peacoe, whose team struggled with pitching control and defense in a 20-10 loss to Sherando on Tuesday and made two errors in falling behind 2-0 to Clarke County after a half inning Thursday. “We didn’t just need a win, we needed an overall team win.

“Anyone can go out there and just win and ride their way through things, but to come together as a team and to completely be functioning as a whole unit instead of just individual selves, that’s really big. That’s really key. We won as a team and picked everyone up. No one got their head down, even when we made errors.”

Both coaches came away proud with how their teams fought Thursday — James Wood’s Taylor Rizzari (1-1) allowed just one run to score after entering a no-out, bases loaded situation in the fifth with the Colonels up 6-4 and earned the win with three innings of relief work — especially since they were both without several key players because of trips with school organizations.

Clarke County was without four players — including catcher Alex Jackson and designated player Allie Hicks — with three of them in New York. James Wood was missing center fielder and leadoff hitter Taylor Woolsey, pitcher Sarah Garis and courtesy runner Caitlyn Hickey because they were in Virginia Beach.

Part of why Garis and Hickey are so valuable is they both ease the strain on Peacoe, who initially strained her MCL in that first game against Clarke County. James Wood coach Ted McDaniel said he believed Garis had pitched in every game prior to Thursday’s and Hickey usually runs for Peacoe.

Fortunately, in the sixth inning, all Peacoe needed to do was jog after hammering a 3-2 offering from Clarke County junior pitcher Sarah Miller to lead off.

Peacoe regretted not swinging at a 3-1 pitch that was called a strike. But fortunately, the next pitch was in the same spot, and she could tell immediately it was going to be a home run.

“If they’re going to put it right down the middle, you’ve got to take advantage of it,” Peacoe said. “When you hit a home run, you’re just so focused in. You see the yellow pop right off the bat, and just the feel of the bat ... it’s unlike anything else. It’s the best feeling ever. You know immediately that you hit [a home run].”

McDaniel said he can’t say enough about Peacoe’s value to the team.

She’s been dealing with shoulder problems for years, her ankles bother her, and toss the MCL injury in and it’s easy to see why she’s twisting her body during her delivery rather than just coming straight forward. But at this point, rest isn’t going to do any her good.

Besides, she wants to do everything she can to help her team. As McDaniel said, her diving stop and throw to first from the ground while playing second base as she moved toward the right-field line for an out on the first at-bat in the seventh inning was a play that likely could not have been made by anyone else on the team.

But in the fifth, McDaniel had to turn to someone else, as Peacoe had run out of steam with the count 2-0 on Clarke County’s Stephanie Nelson. Down 6-4, the Eagles had the bases loaded and nobody out and had already scored one run in the inning.

Rizzari came in and got Nelson on a pop out and struck out Destiny Pierce. Freshman Kendall Benoit (4 for 4 with a double) smacked an RBI single to left to make it 6-5, but Rizzari induced a grounder to shortstop Courteney Harper (2 for 4 with a double and RBI), who flipped to Peacoe at second to end the inning.

“That was big,” McDaniel said.

Rizzari gave up an unearned run in the sixth (third baseman Alyssa Brown helped strand runners at second and third by spearing a low liner from Nelson), but she allowed only a single to Benoit in the seventh in closing things out. She allowed four hits, no walks, no earned runs and struck out two.

Clarke County coach Susan Grubbs certainly would have enjoyed a win, but she liked an offensive effort that saw the Eagles rap out 10 hits and had some other potential hits taken away by strong defensive plays. The problem for Clarke was that it also made five physical errors and also had some mental ones.

“I thought we hit extremely well. This is probably one of our best games hitting,” Grubbs said. “Sometimes we didn’t always string them together as well as we would have liked. Unfortunately our defense wasn’t as solid as it’s been in the past. Like the girls said after the game, we’ve just got to have good hitting and solid defense at the same time.”

The Colonels were also led by Laura Gates, who had a two-run single. For Clarke, Katey Dunn went 2 for 4 and Miller (2-1 pitching) went 2 for 3 with a double.

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