The baseball season is officially underway as the Louisa Lions played in their first home game of the season on a chilly Friday night. The Lions were facing the North Stafford Wolverines, the state tournament runner-ups in 2017.
Lliam Grubbs started the game on the mound, giving up a hit to the first Wolverine batter. The runner was quickly thrown out by the catcher, Garrett Duerson, on a steal attempt. Then drawing two strikeouts to end the inning, Grubbs finished with only eleven pitches. One of Louisa’s fastest players, Austin Nicholas, led off in the bottom of the first inning drawing a single off of the Wolverines pitcher, Kaleb Bailey. Nicholas was then picked off by Bailey. The inning quickly ended with two pop flys from Garrett Duerson and Lliam Grubbs.
The first three innings for the Wolverine offense were scoreless, suffering from five strikeouts and two groundouts. Louisa scored their first run on an RBI double from Lliam Grubbs which scored Travis Pleasants, courtesy runner for the catcher.
The fourth inning saw a little more action as North Stafford scored their first run of the game. Wolverine Grayson Smith singled off of Grubbs to begin the inning and was later brought in on an RBI double from Cody English. Louisa’s offense dominated the fourth inning scoring five runs on four hits, sending ten batters to the plate.
Tristan Snyder got the ball for Louisa in the top of the fifth, only allowing one run on three hits and five strikeouts over three innings. North Stafford brought in Ethan Kearns to pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning, only allowing three hits over three innings. The game ended in the top of the seventh with a swinging strikeout by Kevin Delash.
Louisa pitching dominated against Wolverine batters, only allowing two runs on three hits with one error and no walks allowed. The Lions won 6-2 and improve to 1-0 on the season. Louisa will take on Charlottesville High School at Charlottesville on Monday at 5:00pm. Let’s go Lions!
