FAIRLEA- Game one was a thrilling victory, but game two was a tough loss. But sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
The Greenbrier East Spartans baseball team split a pair of weekend games with the Hedgesville Eagles in a double-header that took place on two different days. East won 5-4 in eight innings on Friday night, then Saturday morning, the Eagles bats came alive and defeated the Spartans 17-7.
In game one, East took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a 2-run double from Eli Green. Green then got through the next couple innings on the mound unscathed as the Spartans kept that 2-0 lead after two.
In the top of the third, the Eagles’ Cash Dunham tied things up with a 2-run double off Green, but the tie did not last long.
Nelson Lynch scored on a passed ball in the bottom half of the same frame and the Spartans took a 3-2 lead.
Then, with the score tied at 3-3 in the fifth inning, Lynch worked a walk and got on base. He would score on the very next batter’s Brady May’s single as the Spartans (3-1) continued the back-and-forth contest and held a 4-3 advantage.
Hedgesville waited until the seventh inning to tie it up at 4-all and the game went to extras after a 1-2-3 Spartan bottom of the seventh.
But it was the bottom of the eighth that brought the Spartan magic alive. After two quick strikeouts, it looked like the Spartans were going down in order again, but a single from Green, a hit-by-pitch to Clay Patton, and a walk to Braden Teaney loaded the bases all of a sudden. That is when Brayden Bascombe stepped in and swung at the first pitch and drove an RBI single to right field. Green scored and the crowd went wild as East won in walk-off fashion.
At the plate, Green went 3-4 with a run and two RBIs. Lynch scored two runs. Teaney picked up the pitching win in relief. He pitched 1.1 innings, allowed one hit, and struck out one.
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Game two was not as friendly to the Spartans although they did show some resiliency which was good to see.
Trailing 9-2 in the fifth, they put forth their best rally effort when Lynch laced a 2-run double that scored Zion Detko and Sam Roshau. A couple batters later, Graham Brewster ripped another 2-run double to left center and brought home two more key runs. The big inning made the score 9-6, Hedgesville, after five.
However, in the top of the seventh, the Eagles (2-1) had six hits–five of which were doubles– and they turned them into five runs which came on top of a 3-run sixth frame and that was all they needed.
Detko homered in the bottom of the third for East and led the Spartans with a 3-4, two run, RBI day at the plate. Roshau was a perfect 3-3 at the plate and scored a run. Lynch (2-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) and Brewster (2-4, two RBIs) also had good days on offense.
Sonny Herbert took the loss on the mound for the Spartans.
The Eagles knocked out 21 hits in the game.
