Gallery by Greg Barnett
Princeton – Princeton baseball coach Brandon Dunford called Brody Combs’ last start, a 5-0 loss to Beckley, his best of the season.
The sophomore topped that by all measures Wednesday.
Combs allowed just three hits and struck out 12 as the Tigers capped Coppinger Tournament pool play with a 7-1 win over James Monroe at Hunnicutt Field.
Combs, who allowed his lone run in the seventh inning, worked out of jams in the early innings before settling in and taming the Mavericks.
After hitting the leadoff batter and allowing him to reach third following an errant pickoff attempt, Combs fanned the next two batters before inducing a flyout. From there he largely avoided trouble, holding James Monroe hitless until the fifth inning.
“It was great performance,” Dunford said. “I think he built on last week’s performance and then really stepped it up. He kept them off balance, used his fastball effectively and moved it around the zone really kept their offense down. Even when they did put some runners on base then we had some pickoffs, our catcher stepped up and made a back pick on a pickoff here at first so I mean even when we did have runners we were able to use our defense to get away from that but his pitching performance, he built it up from last week and really stepped it up.”
James Monroe rolled with freshman Kadyn Hines on the mound and he responded well to adversity, stranding four runners on the bases through two innings to keep the game scoreless.
But the dam eventually broke on the young hurler as his defense committed four errors behind him.
An error at shortstop allowed Princeton to plate its first run and a balk allowed Combs to score from third to make it 2-0 after three innings.
The following frame yielded more of the same for the Mavericks after an error at third allowed Kaden Davis to reach base, giving the Tigers a leadoff man on. A stolen base set the table for Deegan Walters who stroked an RBI single to score Davis. Walters was erased by Mavs catcher Cooper Ridgeway on a steal attempt but a walk to Lucas Monaghan served to replace Walters on the base paths.
Monaghan capitalized, advancing to third on a single by Nate Dunford and scoring on an errant throw from Ridgeway, making it 4-0.
Combs later helped his own cause, driving in Dunford and Braden Dalton with a two-run double to make it 6-0 in favor of the Tigers.
“That’s one of the things that we’re trying to do is limit the mistakes,” James Monroe head coach Tom Gardinier said. “One mistake is okay, but don’t let it go into two mistakes. Don’t let it go into three mistakes. And being young like that on the mound, sometimes you got to fight through that kind of thing. He’s a darn good pitcher, and he’s been in a lot of big games. Growing up a lot in travel ball a lot, a lot of showcase things like that, but he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.”
Meanwhile the Mavericks struggled to capture that same magic at the plate. They managed just two base runners from the third inning to the sixth with both being erased by a pickoff and unsuccessful steal attempt.
Princeton added insult to injury when Combs collected his third RBI of the night in the sixth inning, knocking a sac-fly that scored Dalton.
“The one thing with this offense is even throughout the whole year, they’re very aggressive offense,” Dunford said. “They’re not an offense that’s looking for walks or looking to take balls. They’re attacking pitches. And it’s just finally coming on board where we’re actually hitting the ball hard. And then we’re coming up with more bunts when we’ve needed to use a little small ball the last couple nights. They have been able to capitalize when they need, move the runners around and take the opportunities, but the best thing that I’m seeing is now we’re looking like a complete offense and we’re not just one through six in the lineup. I’m seeing that following one through nine now.”
James Monroe’s bats finally broke through in the seventh inning when Hines smacked a leadoff double and scored on a Justin Feamster single but Combs fanned the final two batters of the game to cap his masterpiece.
“(Combs) is a darn good pitcher, that’s for sure,” Gardinier said. “We don’t see too many good pitchers like that at our level. There’s a good handful of pitchers, but he was just doing some good stuff. We had theories that he might be throwing a lot of breaking balls, but he didn’t throw a lot of breaking balls and he just had us kind of just off track. So yeah, it took us a little bit to kind of get it back but we finally broke through a little bit and kind of broke the seal.”
Both teams finished 2-1 in pool play in the Coppinger Tournament and will await matchups for the next rounds.
