PHOTO BY BRIAN HOFFMAN
The Glenvar High baseball team is hoping to scrap back to .500 to start the Region 2C tournament next week. The Highlanders were 8-10 with two regular season games remaining following a 4-3 win at Radford Monday.
The region is set to begin next Thursday, May 29, and the Highlanders were the fifth seed at press time. They need to move up to fourth to get a first round home game and they had James River at home Wednesday and a game at Floyd Friday to close out the regular season.
“If we can get two more wins and finish the regular season at .500 after starting 0-6 that would be great,” said coach Jeremy Cromer. “We had a really tough non-district schedule and I feel like that helped us improve.”
The Highlanders got a complete game pitching performance from freshman Cam Feazell on Monday at Radford. The host Bobcats scratched two in the first and a run in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead but Rhett Henderson singled in two in the top of the sixth to cut the lead to 3-2. In the top of the seventh Gray Hutchison singled and Adam Franklin reached on a bunt with runners moving to second and third. Hutchison scored on a shallow fly by Landyn Pickard that ended up being a sacrifice fly.
“We’ve been teaching them to take a couple steps off the third base bag to make it look like they were going,” said Cromer. “When Gray did that a throw to home went over the catchers’ head and allowed us to tie the game.”
Jack Osburn then followed with an RBI single to put Glenvar up for the first time in the game, 4-3, and Feazell closed out the bottom of the seventh. Cam allowed just one earned run on five hits while striking out nine and walking none.
The game followed a 5-0 loss to Alleghany on GYB night last Friday. The game was close to not being played due to a late afternoon thunderstorm.
“After 20 bags of quick dry and 20 bags of Turface we were able to get the field ready in a little under an hour,” said Cromer.
Unfortunately, the Highlanders didn’t rain many hits on the Cougars. Glenvar had just two hits and committed three errors in the loss to spoil a strong pitching performance by Cale Vaughan, who allowed three hits and no earned runs over five innings.
