On the night that Fluvanna County baseball honored their 2019 State Championship team, hosting unbeaten Louisa County, it was pretty obvious the Flucos had no intention of dropping Thursday’s contest.
Even after losing the chance to defend that title and with only three players from that team left on this year’s roster, the Flucos were able to take down the Lions by a score of 11-6.
“It was big, Louisa’s always a quality program even when we won the State title our games with them were 3-2 and 2-1, so it’s always a dogfight when we play them,” said Flucos Coach Joel Gray. “We were fortunate in the first inning, but we knew they were gonna come back, they always do.”
That first inning proved explosive enough to be the difference. The Flucos scored seven runs with a lot of the damage coming off of three Louisa errors. There were actually a total of nine errors committed in the game, where both teams notching their fair share of struggles defensively.
The Flucos got out in front big and in a hurry, taking a commanding 11-3 lead after three innings. It seemed like they were in complete control of the game.
Then the Lions began to chip away, taking advantage of some quality at-bats and many of the Flucos’ six errors to put up some runs. They got one in the fourth on an RBI single from Sean Karney, and then got two in the top of the fifth on some of the Flucos errors to make it an 11-6 ballgame. The momentum seemed to be completely on the side of the Lions, but the Flucos knew that they had to finish the job.
“It was a sloppy game on the defensive part, but the sticks made up for it and we were able to come out with a win,” said Fluvanna’s John Rittenhouse, who went 1-for-2 in the game with two walks and two runs scored.
Over the rest of the game, the Flucos were able to lock in defensively and the pitching gave them a boost as well, as Lance Gowans and John Glasscock combined to not give up an earned run the entire game. With that solid pitching and defense late in the game, the Flucos were able to keep the Lions off the scoreboard the rest of the way, handing them their first loss of the year.
“Somebody told me there were 17 runs and no extra-base hits for either team, I’ll have to go back to the book to see if that was true, but we have some young guys especially on the mound that we need to settle down and don’t be your own worst enemy,” said Gray. “Pound the zone, play the percentages, and good things will happen.”
Other big performances for the Flucos included Joseph Gomez who went 2-for-3 with a walk, a run scored and two RBIs, and Tristan Chisholm who went 1-for-4 with a run scored, an RBI and two steals. Standouts for the Lions included Karney who went 1-for-4 with an RBI, Jacob Barber who went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and a walk, and Lucas Cash who went 1-for-2 with three walks.
After this matchup, the Flucos will host Albemarle on Tuesday, while the Lions will regroup and host the Patriots on Thursday.
