AHS falls to Forge

A veteran lineup combined with a strong pitcher proved to be the one-two punch that Colonial Forge needed to get past Albemarle in a Commonwealth District matchup Wednesday night.
The Eagles, last year’s regular season and tournament champions, broke to an early lead and the Patriots could never recover as the visitors secured the 11-6 win.
Colonial Forge — which starts six seniors with multiple years of varsity experience — got hits up and down the lineup as well as a solid performance from their ace, Colin McManus, en route to the victory.
“Anytime you play on the road, you want to jump out early, and we were able to do that,” said Colonial Forge coach Shawn Szakelyhidi. “And they responded in the bottom half and we were able to answer later in the game. I’m real pleased with the way we swung the bat. I couldn’t be more proud of the kids, the way they came and played. They played hard one through nine.”
The Eagles (9-4, 6-1 Commonwealth) exploded for five runs in the first inning, three of which came on a well-hit ball by Ethan Ferrick to left-center field.
Albemarle (8-3, 4-2) answered, as Robbie Taylor and Vince Coles led off the inning with back-to-back singles, and cleanup batter Tyler Molinaro delivered a bloop double to center field to cut the lead to 5-2.
Colonial Forge tacked on another run in the third, and took a commanding 10-2 lead after scoring four more in the fourth. Shayne Paskanik had a two-RBI single to center to get things going, and the Eagles capitalized on three Albemarle errors to extend their advantage.
The Patriots were unable to dig out of the hole while facing McManus, who scattered six hits and was effective in getting batters to fly out.  The 6-foot-4, 225-pound righthander, who is headed to Randolph-Macon next year, allowed three runs in 6.1 innings of work.
“Colonial Forge is the team to beat,” said Albemarle coach Carroll Bickers, “and I didn’t think this was one of our better ballgames tonight. We might have been pressing, but they executed and they put some runs on the board. We just got beat by a good ball team.”
Albemarle added three runs to mount a comeback in the seventh inning, but it was too little, too late. The only Patriots to post multi-hit games were Taylor and Coles, who both went 2 for 4.
“With this group, I’m confident they’ll bounce back,” Bickers said. “We’ll hit the ball, we’ll work at it tomorrow. The kids know what we’ve got to do. I think they were a little disappointed as I was with how we played today. I thought we could have played better.”
Albemarle will try and bounce back against Stafford at home on Friday in another district contest.