WINCHESTER — As Logan Bower stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 11th inning, the James Wood High School baseball team was staring at the possibility of accumulating their 17th, 18th and 19th players left on base for its game against Sherando, including their 12th and 13th in scoring position.
That was not on the mind of the Colonels senior pitcher and outfielder after the onus was put on him to reverse the tide following strikeouts by two teammates that preceded him.
“You’ve just got to look forward,” said Bower when asked about his team’s overall mentality on Tuesday. “You can’t look back and reminisce on the bad stuff that happened. You’ve got to look forward to all the good stuff that you have to put together to win the baseball game that day.”
In the most dramatic of spots, Bower dug in and worked a seven-pitch walk to force in the winning run at R. Charles Hott Field. After battling back from a 1-2 count and fouling the sixth pitch off, Bower watched the seventh pitch go high to give James Wood a 6-5, 11-inning win and a split of their season series with the Warriors. The game lasted three hours and 35 minutes.
Both teams had multiple opportunities to seize a battle that had fans in the bleachers routinely applauding their efforts and had people commenting, “What a great game!” on several occasions.
But it was James Wood (9-2, 3-1 Class 4 Northwestern District) that won its seventh straight contest after scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning off Dean Lamb in relief to make it 4-4, another run in the 10th off Lamb to tie the game 5-5, and pushing across the winning run in the 11th after Sherando freshman pitcher Evan Combs was just one strike away from getting the Warriors out of another jam.
Colonels coach Adrian Pullen certainly liked the fortitude put on display by his team, which lost 13-3 to Sherando (7-5, 2-1) in six innings the first time they played each other on March 25. Freshman Jake Woskobunik was one of many who rose to the occasion, retiring all three batters he faced in the top of the 10th after coming in with the bases loaded and Sherando up 5-4, then driving in the tying run in the bottom of the 10th with a single.
“The beauty of baseball is it’s so much mental over physical at times,” Pullen said. “Tonight, it showed that. In pressure situations, it’s who can stay relaxed and who can control their emotions, and can come through in what we practice every day with situations.
“We left a lot of base runners on and didn’t always execute well. But at the end of the day we kept giving ourselves a chance because we believe in ourselves, and believe that we can win the game. We finally did execute. We were balanced at the plate and did what we needed to do.”
Though the Warriors weren’t always sharp, it seemed like they had done what was necessary to win prior to the bottom of the seventh inning.
Starting pitcher Aaron DeHaven (six innings, six hits, one walk, two hit batters, five strikeouts) was touched for two unearned runs in the second inning, but he shut out the Colonels over the next four innings to allow Sherando to take the lead. The Warriors scored one run in the third, two in the fourth and one in the sixth against Bower (6.2 innings, four runs, two earned, five hits, two walks, eight strikeouts).
In the seventh, Sherando gave the ball to its ace pitcher Lamb (4-0, 0.84 ERA, 11 walks in 25 innings coming in). But after an opening strike, Lamb threw 12 balls in a row to load the bases.
He then threw two more balls to Colin Thomas (1 for 3), with the second one a pitch that popped out of catcher Dylan Frazier’s glove and toward the backstop after he stood to grab it. That allowed courtesy runner Cole Ritter — who came in for catcher Owen Neal (1 for 4, RBI, three walks) after his leadoff walk — to score and make it 4-3.
Three pitches later, Lamb (four innings, three runs, all earned, four hits, seven walks, eight strikeouts) walked Thomas to reload the bases. Tyler Prusik (1 for 5, walk) then served a hard hit the opposite way to left field to tie the game 4-4. It now seemed like James Wood’s game to win, but to Lamb’s credit, he battled and struck out the next three batters.
The next two innings saw Parker Kerns retire Sherando in order both times and Lamb walk a tightrope in keeping the game at 4-4. Lamb gave up a leadoff double to Zach Woskobunik and a walk to Neal to start the eighth, but a groundout and two strikeouts ended the threat. A Prusik walk and stolen base to start the eighth put another runner in scoring position in the ninth, but three straight strikeouts ended the inning.
In the 10th, Sherando went ahead after each of the first four batters reached safely. Judson Dean was hit by a pitch, Isaiah Doeden had a short bunt where Neal threw to second to try and get Dean but couldn’t, and Hayden LaFever was also hit by a pitch. Kerns (2.1 innings, 1 run that was earned, no hits, three strikeouts) then issued a four-pitch walk to Sam Ridings to give the Warriors a 5-4 lead.
Pullen then turned to Jake Woskobunik. Against Heritage last week at Bridgeforth Stadiium, Woskobunik was brought in with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth inning, and he didn’t retire either of the two batters he faced. This time, he fired up the James Wood fans with a strikeout, popout and strikeout to keep the game at 5-4.
“I learned from that moment [against Heritage],” Jake Woskobunik said. “I threw strikes and I trusted my team behind me. I knew they had my back.”
Pullen liked hearing that Woskobunik felt he grew from the Heritage experience.
“He was able to control his emotions a little better tonight,” Pullen said. “He filled up the strike zone. He made some great pitches. All of our pitchers threw well.”
James Wood’s pitching depth paid off in the top of the 10th, and its bench played a key role in the bottom of the frame.
With two outs and the courtesy runner Ritter on first as a result of Neal’s third walk, junior Maddox Wright came to the plate for the first time and ripped a single to center. Jake Woskobunik then had his first plate appearance, and on a 3-2 pitch he lifted a high fly ball down the right-field line. Sherando’s right fielder, first baseman and second baseman all chased after it, but it dropped just inside the line to score Ritter and make it 5-5.
“I just knew I had to put the ball in play,” Jake Woskobunik said. “I just had to find a way to put it out here somewhere and make the defense work.”
Lamb retired the next batter on a groundout to second.
In the 11th, Woskobunik retired the side in order and struck out two more batters.
In the bottom of the frame, designated hitter Lane Herring put a jolt into the crowd with a double to right to lead things off. Kerns walked, then Kaden McCullough was hit to load the bases.
But just like Lamb, Combs battled back with two straight strikeouts. He got ahead of Bower at 1-2. Two balls and a foul ball then proceeded the game-deciding pitch.
“When I saw it coming in, about halfway through I just let it up [because I thought it was high] and I’d see what the umpire said,” Bower said. “He called it a ball and that was the game.”
Pullen was glad to have Bower at the plate in that situation.
“You look for your senior leaders to come up and execute in pressure situations,” Pullen said. “He came through. It was a great at-bat.”
Tuesday’s win was James Wood’s third in six days that was decided by two runs or less. Sherando is now 2-5 in games decided by two runs or less.
“We were where we wanted to be, but we just didn’t execute in that seventh [inning],” Warriors coach Craig Bodenschatz said. “We wiggled out of countless jams there in extra innings, but execution wasn’t there. Execution wasn’t there at the mound, at the plate and in the field in a couple of spots. Those first two runs, we spotted them. In a tight ballgame, you can’t give away runs on errors, and that’s what we did.”
In the second inning, after a grounder was fielded at third, the throw to first bounced in the dirt and went off the first baseman’s glove. It would have been the third out, but Neal followed with a short chopper toward third for a single that drove in Kerns, and Woskubunik eventually scored on a wild pitch for a 2-0 lead.
The Warriors wouldn’t make another error, but they just couldn’t do enough to break the game open or shut down Wood when it needed to.
“It’s a whale of a ballgame,” Bodenschatz said. “It was back and forth with momentum swings, and everything you can ask for in a rivalry game. That’s the fun part. The fun part is to come out here and compete, and our guys competed all night. For that, we’re proud of them.
“But on the execution side, we’ve got to be better in tight ballgames. It’s something we’re going to keep working on. All you can do is keep putting yourself in a position to keep winning ballgames, and hopefully, you can come through. Tonight, [James Wood] executed one more time then we did.”
Nick Usa was 1 for 5 with two RBIs for Sherando, and Frazier had a double in the fourth. Doeden ran for Frazier and got caught in a rundown on a fielder’s choice grounder, but the ball was misplayed during the rundown. He reached third and scored on a wild pitch.
Sherando hosts Liberty on Thursday and James Wood hosts Warren County on Friday.
— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at rniedzwiecki@winchesterstar.com
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