Gallery by Greg Barnett
Bluefield, Va. – It’s hard to place a ton of importance on an early April baseball game, but Thursday’s matchup between PikeView and Bluefield was pivotal.
With PikeView sporting a 3-0 record in sectional play, a win each against the other three teams in the section, a second victory against the Beavers would’ve solidified PikeView’s claim to home field advantage in next month’s sectional tournament.
But the Beavers, winners of the last two sectional championships, are back in contention for the top seed.
Bluefield hurler Hunter Harmon struck out 15 batters as the Beavers avenged an earlier loss to PikeView with a 3-1 decision at Bowen Field.
Harmon was masterful throughout the evening, striking out the first batter he faced and inducing the next two outs on consecutive pitches but his best work came in the middle innings where he struck out 13 consecutive batters. Every Panther he faced struck out at least once but he proved most effective against PikeView’s No. 6-9 hitters, fanning the quadruplet in every one of their at bats for nine of his 15 strikeouts.
“I was just throwing the fastball and locating really well,” Harmon said. “When they picked up on it I could just throw the curveball to keep them off balance and go back to the fastball. I lived around the zone and I’ve always been taught to throw to contact but I threw in the zone and they just didn’t hit it.”
The Beaver offense wasted little time backing Harmon, with Caleb Fuller smacking a leadoff double in the bottom of the first, taking third when the relay from left field was mishandled. A sac fly from Davis Rockness scored Fuller before Harmon helped his own cause with a triple into the left-center gap. Bryson Redmond followed up with a walk and in a strategically sound move, drew a pickoff from PikeView ace Nathan Riffe.
Redmond was caught off the bag but a chase down attempt allowed Harmon to sneak his way home from third before Redmond took second on an error. He was eventually gunned down at third base trying to stretch the miscue but when the dust cleared Bluefield held a 2-0 advantage, giving Harmon all the support he needed.
“I told them I felt like that first inning was totally on me with pitch calling,” PikeView head coach Josh Wyatt said. “I’ll shoulder that. We were maybe just a little off-base on that as far as my end as far as what we were doing to try and keep them off balance. Just did not get that job done. We made a switch as soon as we came off the mound and I thought Nathan did an incredible job of keeping us in the ballgame and holding up his end of the bargain from that point forward.”
Riffe rebounded from the rough start, allowing just one run after a miscommunication allowed a fly ball to drop on the edge of the infield and a mishandled ground ball kept and inning alive for an Anthony Buzzo RBI single in the fourth, stretching the Beaver advantage to 3-0.
Though that deficit seemed more insurmountable with Hamron’s efficiency on the bump. The 5-foot-9 senior began his strikeout streak with one out in the second inning and carried it two batters deep into the sixth.
“He was on,” Bluefield head coach Jimmy Redmond said. “We call it that bulldog mentality and he had it tonight. Something lit a fire in him and he’s definitely getting the game ball.”
“First of all kudos to him because he pitched a great game but on our side of it I don’t think we ever made him work,” Wyatt said. “We didn’t swing at balls in the zone and we were swinging at balls out of the zone. There was a stretch there in the second or third inning where I thought we could’ve got a couple more walks and been on second or third base but we helped him out by swinging at balls over out hands. It just put us behind the eight ball.”
The end of Harmon’s streak coincided with PikeView finding life. Drew Damewood reached on an error after a check swing put a ball in play and the dribbler to Harmon was sailed over the first-baseman’s head, putting Damewood at second for Riffe. The senior drove Damewood in with a single but was caught stealing at second on a throw from Fuller.
That proved to be PikeView’s last uprising of the game as a one-out single in the seventh yielded nothing with Harmon appropriately capping the win with a strikeout.
“It always helps when you can put pressure on them early,” Redmond said. “I think Fuller’s hit really jumpstarted us and Hunter pitched a really good game. We’re proud of him and we’ll try to ride the momentum a little bit. We stumbled a little bit at the beginning of the year but we’re back to .500 … That was a big win tonight.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on twitter @tjack94
