For a second time in just a few days, it was the pitching that was dominant. And for a second straight time it was Orange County’s baseball team grinding out a win over William Monroe, this time a 2-1 win with a rally in the seventh to pick up a road win and improve to 2-0 on the year.
“Monroe is such a scrappy team and obviously well-coached, everyone knows that about Mike Maynard, the great job that they do with their squad but I think our kids are scrappy too and we’ve shown that in these two games,” said Orange coach Adam Utz. “That’s the key for us this year — being tough and use as many guys as we can to go deep into games. It’s about the next guy stepping up and we’ve got guys coming off the bench doing great jobs.”
Orange starter Brett Jennings threw four innings of shutout baseball and handed the ball off to Caleb Fincham who played a large role in the finish. Fincham earned the win and gave up no hits, one unearned run. Fincham also started off the rally in the seventh by wearing a pitch and getting on base.
“Fincham has come in twice now and closed out games for us,” Utz said. “Brett did exactly what we expect from him. I wish his pitch count had been lower so we could have extended him but credit Monroe there and credit Brett because he battled tonight without his best stuff and that’s what you have to do. That’s two games in a row now though that Fincham has gotten on base for the game winning run.”
When Fincham took to first he was replaced for the second game in a row by Hylton Hale as a courtesy runner. He was able to advance to second on a stolen base with two outs. That set up Christian Koontz at the plate who then delivered the go-ahead RBI double deep to left field.
“I just came up and was seeing the ball really well in the last at-bat,” Koontz said. “This time on the second pitch I saw it and just put it down the line.”
Before that, runs were awfully tough to come by. Jennings worked out of his jams and in the top of the fourth Orange put him in line to get a win. Tucker Hensley got things going with a 1-out single. Then a two out walk to Cannon Davies put Hensley in scoring position. Zach Redifer delivered in the next at-bat with an RBI double to center. Monroe’s defense limited the damage by getting Davies out at home on the throw to make it 1-0 going into the bottom of the fourth.
Monroe tied things up in the bottom of the fifth. It was quite the manufactured run with Max Kinsey reaching first to leadoff with a dropped third strike. Then a walk to Hunter Powell brought up Jonathan Sexton. He reached on an error to load the bases. A bases loaded walk to Logan Jones plated Monroe’s run and made it 1-1 going into the sixth after Fincham got a clutch bases loaded pop-up to first base.
“We’re just not executing really well right now, not hitting so it just feels like a train wreck because we had the base runners despite that,” Maynard said. “That’s baseball though, we just need one of our good hitters to hit a line drive and we’re going to be just fine.”
Monroe tried to rally in the bottom of the seventh when Powell was hit by a pitch with one out. However, Fincham closed the gate after going down 3-0 in the count to Sexton and getting a solid defensive play from Devin Champion for the second out and a strikeout to end the game.
Lost in the mix was the solid pitching performance from Monroe. Brayden Collon gave up one hit and struck out four of the seven batters he faced in two innings to start. Brian Slaughter threw the next two innings and contained the Hornets to one run. Lance Tate threw the final three innings and gave up one hit and struck out five batters.
“It’s been a struggle against Orange, both teams are pitching well, playing defense well and neither team is hitting well,” Maynard said. “They got us twice, 1-0 in eight innings and now 2-1 in seven and so we’re just not coming out of the gates swinging well but our pitchers are sure throwing well.”
