WINCHESTER — James Wood High School baseball coach Adrian Pullen likes his team to have a next-pitch mentality, and on Wednesday, that mentality was vital.
After giving up 10 runs in the fifth inning and surrendering its lead, Wood rallied and defeated Heritage 13-11 in the Battle of the Borders tournament hosted by Shenandoah University at Bridgeforth Stadium on Wednesday.
Trailing Wood 9-0 through four, Heritage scored all of its fifth-inning runs with two outs on the board.
Although giving up 10 two-out runs put a damper on the Colonels’ morale, they bounced back with two runs in both the the fifth and sixth innings to secure a fifth straight victory.
The Colonels (7-2) rallied in the final two frames after an error, four walks and a hit by pitch in the fifth cost them their lead. The Pride (4-8) nearly cycled through their entire lineup twice in the fifth before a flyout in foul territory got the Colonels back to their dugout.
Pullen thought his team let the moment “get a little big” in the fifth inning but was proud of how the players fought back to retake the lead.
“You’re going to make physical mistakes, and that’s going to happen. It’s part of the game,” Pullen said. “It’s what you do and [the] next pitch that matters. Today, we kept winning the next pitch.”
With one out on the board and his team trailing by one in the bottom of the fifth, Zack Woskobunik hit an RBI triple down the right-field line to tie the game at 10 apiece. Woskobunik then crossed home on a wild pitch to give the Colonels an 11-10 lead heading into the sixth.
Pullen thought Woskobunik’s triple was a huge tipping point.
“That’s a big moment in the game,” Pullen said. “We had kind of let down after we gave them runs and kind of lost our life a little bit. Then that right there was just a great at-bat that got us into a situation to put us back in the lead. And then from there, we started believing again.”
A Lane Herring run on a wild pitch and a Woskobunik sacrifice fly in the sixth gave Wood a 13-10 lead going into the seventh.
And while Heritage was in position to tie the game after scoring a two-out, unearned run and putting runners on second and third, Logan Bower’s relief efforts wound up retiring the last batter and ending the game.
“We got full faith in Logan,” Pullen said. “He’s another senior leader that leads by example. He just comes in, and he understands the moment. We got a three-run lead, and we just got to throw strikes and take outs, and that’s what we did.”
In addition to closing out the game on the mound, Bower — a Shepherd University commit — finished 2 for 2 with a run, an RBI and two walks at the plate.
After the top of the fifth spiraled out of control for the Colonels, Bower, who started at right field, thought the team executed well down the stretch.
“We all had to come in the dugout and decided that we had to put the barrels together and stop the walks,” Bower said.
Woskobunik shared Bower’s sentiment.
“After they scored 10, we kind of got down on ourselves,” Woskobunik said. “But a couple of us in the dugout were just like, ‘Hey, the game’s not over. We got a couple of innings left.’ We stayed positive and came out with a W.”
Woskobunik finished 2 for 3 at the plate with two runs and three RBIs. He had a two-RBI single that contributed to the Colonels’ seven runs in the second.
Pullen thought Woskobunik showcased his experience in helping the team stay composed.
“It’s about doing it on the field and just showing and providing the example of staying calm and staying poised,” Pullen said of Woskobunik.
Parker Kerns threw two strikeouts and gave up four hits and zero earned runs in 4.2 innings. Owen Neal went 1 for 3 with two runs, two RBIs and a walk. Brock Whipkey went 1 for 2 with a run, two RBIs and a walk.
The Colonels’ six errors on Wednesday will be a point of emphasis for Wood to clean up moving forward, but Pullen is happy his team had the advantage in the most important column of the box score.
“We held on there at the end, and we did what we needed to do to win the game,” Pullen said. “That’s the only stat that matters is getting the win.”
Woskobunik is hoping the come-from-behind win bodes well for Wood when it plays Musselman (W.Va.) at 2 p.m. on Thursday in the team’s second game of the Battle of the Borders tournament.
“It’s a great win, especially coming back after they scored 10,” Woskobunik said. “It boosted morale, and we’ve got another game [Thursday], and hopefully we get another W.”
— Contact Justin Robertson at jrobertson@winchesterstar.com