Photos by Jenn King
The James River baseball team will be in Roanoke County today to take on Three Rivers District rival Glenvar in a 5 p.m. game. The Knights are coming off a 12-11 loss to Waynesboro in a “Senior Night” slugfest in Springwood Monday night.
“It was an exciting game for a few different reasons,” said coach Chance Henry. “We got to celebrate four fantastic seniors– Hunter Mays, Kody Park, Logan Joyce and Hunter Weaver. The effort and culture they have brought to this program are unmatched and we were super excited to be able to celebrate them.
“We showed fantastic fight in this game and if a couple things fall a different way we win this ball game. We hit the ball great and did a good job of not expanding our strike zone and taking walks.”
River fell behind 8-1 after three and a half innings but scored six in the bottom of the fourth to cut the lead to 8-7. The Little Giants had leads of 11-7 and 12-9 but River fought back each time and went into the seventh down 12-10. The Knights scored one run in the seventh but came up one run short.
Both teams had 13 hits. Jeremiah Mays led the Knights with three hits while Evan Byers, Carter Birchead and Evan Joyce had two each. Cam Saunders had three runs batted in. Kody Park, Saunders and Evan Joyce split time on the mound.
“Kody did a fine job of keeping us there for a while and Evan finished the game for us and had his best overall game all year,” said Henry. “He was pounding the zone with all of his pitches and was really cutting it loose. last night. However, our defense didn’t do us any favors. If we just made half the amount of errors we did we would’ve won this game.”
The Knights dropped a 12-1 game to a strong Carroll County team in Hillsville last Saturday and are now 5-14 overall.
“Carroll County is a really good team and it will take anyone’s best effort to beat them,” said Henry.
