Lions rally for title

MINERAL – Just over a week ago, Fluvanna County’s baseball team beat Louisa County, handing the Lions their first loss in Jefferson District play.

And for the better part of Thursday night’s district title game, it looked as if the Flucos would come out on top again.

But Louisa refused to let that happen.  The Lions scored three runs in the fifth inning and let their closers do the rest as they rallied for a 7-5 win to secure the tournament crown.

Both teams had already secured Region II berths. Louisa (18-4), which was also the regular-season champion, will host James Wood in a first-round game next Monday, while Fluvanna will visit Potomac Falls.

“This was more of an emotional win for us,” said Louisa first-year coach Kevin Fisher. “Fluvanna beat us earlier, so we wanted to come out and do what they did to us in the past. We wanted to play well tonight, and we did after the third inning.”

As in its previous district tournament game against Orange County, things didn’t start too well for Louisa. Before fans could even settle in their seats, the Flucos broke to a 3-0 lead.

Fluvanna’s Robert Thompson led off with a walk, then Tyler Denby reached base on a throwing error before Ryan Foster, Justin Edwards and Matt Hamm provided some timely hits to get the Flucos ahead. Louisa starter Tyler Brookman faced eight batters in the first inning.

Fluvanna (13-10) added another run in the second inning, as Josh Gooch, who got on base with a line-drive single, scored after Louisa’s second baseman bobbled the ball on a routine grounder.

“That can’t happen in the region. We can’t look like we did in the first couple of innings or we’re not going to go that far,” Fisher said. “The problem tonight was that we made errors on balls we definitely shouldn’t have made errors on. But Fluvanna did their job by putting the ball in play, and took advantage of our errors. Late in the game, we did the same thing to them, and they had some misfortunes as well.”

The Lions got some help from the heart of their batting order to tie the game in the third (4-4). Brookman and Dylan Szalankiewicz had back-to-back singles to start the inning, then Kenny Fleming got on after an error by the Fluvanna left fielder, allowing a run to score. Chris Bell got an RBI on a fielder’s choice, and Reggie Shelton’s RBI single to center field tied the game.

But Fluvanna had an answer in the fourth, as cleanup batter Josh Garrison hit a sacrifice fly to right field to allow Denby to score.

Louisa used a two-out rally to take its first lead of the game in the bottom of the fifth—and made it stick.

Shelton drew a walk and Christian Oliver and Jeff Buckler both singled, but it was Miles Rucker, who did not get a hit in the game, who provided the biggest at-bat.

Rucker walked, then Shelton scored on a passed ball. Oliver stole third, then got caught in a run-down on the way home, but beat the throw to the plate to give the Lions the lead. Louisa added an insurance run on another Fluvanna miscue.

“We showed our youth a little bit – that’s the first time we’ve lost our composure in a while,” said Fluvanna coach Mike Sheridan. “That’s the difference with this bunch, is that when bad things happen, we’ve minimized it to one maybe two [runs]. And that one inning, we pushed the panic button a little bit.”

Louisa’s relievers, on the other hand, stayed calm to help the home team prevail. Pete Culver pitched two scoreless innings, while Kurt Fleming, in his first outing of the year, shut the Flucos down in the seventh.

“It’s a game of inches. And we had some things that didn’t go our way,” said Sheridan. “Things had been going our way recently. But if we had to lose a game, I’m glad it’s tonight.”

Sheridan is excited about the possibility of meeting Louisa a fourth time. The teams are in opposite brackets in region play, and if both advance next week could meet in the region final.