William Monroe’s baseball team didn’t run away with it by any means.
But they proved they could grind it out Friday night against Madison County winning the border rivalry 6-0 over the Mountaineers.
A bulk of the credit went to sophomore pitcher Cody Spencer’s five-inning shutout effort.
“Our older kids had great leadership and our sophomore threw great,” said Monroe coach Mike Maynard. “He’s going to be a real good one. I didn’t know he’d throw that well tonight.”
The Dragons built a 3-0 lead in the first inning so Spencer entered the game with a comfortable cushion to start the bottom half of the inning, partially of his own doing as he had an RBI triple in his first at bat during an inning where Keegan Woolford and Jeff Early each also got hits. While Monroe didn’t explode past the Mountaineers after that, they Dragons managed to scratch out several runs to keep extending their lead.
After Spencer wrapped up his five-inning stint, Dustin Knight stepped in for the final two innings to close the door on Madison. Knight issued a series of walks to load up the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but with a strikeout he wrapped up the game and the shutout.
Madison couldn’t seem to get the key hits it needed to make things interesting against the Dragons. The Mountaineers stranded runners in key situations, leaving them on the wrong side of the score against Monroe again.
“We were only a couple of hits from making this a heck of a ball game,” said Madison coach David Londrey. “We left guys on second and third early in the game–I think we had that with one out and couldn’t get them across. It was a good baseball game.”
James Graves threw 4.1 innings for Madison and Austin Kelliher handled the rest of the work on the mound.
Monroe faces a tough stretch of games next week, but Spencer’s five inning effort which kept the Dragons from going too deep into the pen will help in a big way. They’ll face John Champe, Central Woodstock and a Saturday doubleheader with Culpeper at home.
Madison will try and bounce back at home Tuesday against Central Woodstock.
