It took three days for the Cave Spring baseball team to end Lord Botetourt’s season, but when they finally did it wasn’t pretty. LB was slaughter ruled by the Knights, 10-0, in the first round of the Region 3D tournament.
The game was scheduled to be played on Thursday of last week, but heavy rain made the Lord Botetourt field unplayable. The two teams returned to the Daleville diamond on Friday for an early afternoon game and made it to the top of the second before rain came again and suspended the game with the Knights leading 2-0. Finally, on Saturday, the weather cooperated for a game that was originally scheduled for 1 p.m. but moved back to 3:30 p.m. to give the infield a little more time to dry.
When play resumed Cave Spring quickly loaded the bases, but Botetourt got out of the jam unscathed. Not so in the third inning, as Cave Spring scored eight runs, highlighted by a grand slam homer, to take a 10-0 lead after two and a half innings.
The Knights wouldn’t score again off reliever Kobe Hairston, but the Cavaliers didn’t score either. Botetourt had just one hit, by Chase Peck, when the game was called by the 10-run rule after five innings.
Peck, who started Saturday’s resumed game on the mound, took the loss. Garrett Lonker actually started on the mound Friday but threw 42 pitches in an inning and a third and wasn’t allowed to return to the bump by virtue of VHSL rules.
“It was just a bad day,” said LB coach Todd Smith. “It snowballed real quick.”
With the loss the Cavaliers ended the season with a 12-9-1 record. They graduate seven seniors but all but one of their pitchers are slated to return.
“We started the season with no one who had pitched in a varsity game with LB,” said Smith. “It wasn’t a bad season. We beat some good teams but we also lost some games we should have won. We never did get on a roll.”
