Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

Local Sports

Related Photos

  • Erased on the basepath ... PikeView’s Joel Calfee, right, tags out Northwood runner Jeremiah Thompson at Skip Dillow Memorial Field on Monday. Staff photo by Eric DiNovo

    PikeView-Northwood

Discussion

April 27, 2010

Bearing up: Yo-Na tournament continues in the rain

Northwood slips by PikeView

By JED LOCKETT Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BASTIAN, Va. — PikeView and Northwood did their best to ignore the rainy, sloppy conditions on Monday, and played their scheduled game in the Yo-Na Invitational Tournament.

Despite the mess, the teams managed to have a great contest. It culminated with two outs in the top of the seventh, when Dustin Clear singled home the winning runs to give Northwood a 6-4 win over PikeView at Skip Dillow Memorial Field.

“That’s our first win of the year and we’ve got a real young team this year. We’ve only got two seniors and we fielded three freshmen and a sophomore,” said Northwood head coach Lawrence Keith. “I’m very impressed with the way our guys played. We’ve come a loing way since the first of the year.”

“We’ve just not been able to, all year long, do what’s necessary to win in the end,” said PikeView head coach Norman Fletcher. “We have a bad inning every game. It seems like this game, we had it. It was the seventh inning. We just couldn’t get them out.”

Clear went 2-for-3 on the day. But his winner was a long time coming.

“Dustin’s hit the ball pretty well for us all year long, but we’ve been a hard-luck team here lately,” Keith said. “We’ve hit the ball hard, we’ve just hit it to somebody every time. We only had a few fall in the hole for us tonight. The last couple of games, (Clear has) hit the ball pretty well.”

Trailing 4-3, Northwood began its key rally when Stanton Thompson was hit by a pitch. He stole second, and advanced to third on a throwing error by the PikeView catcher. Austin Robbins took advantage of the miscue with a game-tying single to right field.

After Richard Hubble grounded for the second out, Colton Hess and Jeremiah Thompson each drew walks, loading the bases and setting up Clear’s heroics.

“We hit one of them, we walked another, and instead of putting pitches where they couldn’t hit them, we’d get them 1-2 and 0-2 and we challenged them,” Fletcher said. “And we paid for it. They got the timely hits.”

Hubble threw seven strong innings for Northwood. In a 127-pitch performance, he scattered nine hits, but also struck out 10 to just three walks. He also shook off a three-run fifth inning to record the final six outs of the game.

“He was throwing strikes and we weren’t being patient,” Fletcher said. “If you get a good pitcher on the mound like they certainly had this evening, the best chance is to try to get him out and the only way to get him out is to throw lots of pitches, be patient at the plate.”

“We weren’t patient. We haven’t been patient all year.”

Keith said, “He’s come a long way, too. The last two games he threw, he’s done very well for us.”

Thompson got the most hits for Northwood, going 3-for-3 with a walk, two runs and an RBI. Robbins finished 2-for-4 with a run.

Ben Patrick led PikeView, going 2-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and a run. Joel Calfee and Josh Poindexter each added 2-for-3 games.

Northwood (1-11) next takes on Bland County Thursday night in the Yo-Na Invitational.

“We’ll still work on our hitting,” Keith said. “That’s the weak part of our game. We need to stress hitting, and take out all the errors we’ve been making. We’ve been making four or five errors every game.”

PikeView (5-13) travels to Princeton tonight.

“We’re not afraid of them one bit,” Fletcher said. “We’re going in there, and anybody can win a baseball game. Anybody can come back in a game like this one here.”

• • •

After completing four innings and going into the fifth, the Yo-Na Invitational Tournament game between Montcalm and Rural Retreat was suspended due to rain in the top of the fifth inning with the teams tied 3-3.

The Generals opened the scoring in the top of the first when Aaron Presley crossed the plate thanks to an error by the Rural Retreat first baseman. The Indians responded in the bottom of the second as Alan Schappacher gained safe passage to the plate thanks to an error by the Montcalm shortstop.

Rural Retreat took the lead in the top of the third on Matt Bridges’ single to left that scored Isaac Hayes. Then they doubled their advantage in the bottom of the fourth when Bridges drew a walk to bring in Hunter Lowe.

The Generals took the lead in the top of the fifth on Donnie Robbins’ double to left center. By then, the rain had arrived in force and after a lengthy delay, the teams and umpires decided to suspend the game and pick it up at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Rural Retreat’s next Yo-Na game will take place Wednesday against Bland County at 7:30 p.m. Montcalm’s next tournament appearance will be Thursday against Narrows at 5 p.m.

— Contact Jed Lockett at

jlockett@bdtonline.com



At Skip Dillow Memorial Field

Northwood............010   002   3  —  6  9  2

PikeView...............001   030   0  —  4  9  3

Richard Hubble and Austin Robbins. Ben Patrick, Joel Calfee (6), Matt Hatfield (7) and Ryan Farmer. WP—Hubble. LP—Calfee. HR—none.

Text Only
Local Sports