Gallery by Chad Foreman
New Richmond – The first month of the baseball season for Oak Hill can be best described as a roller-coaster ride with plenty of ups and downs.
Monday night it was more of the same when the Red Devils took a journey to the War Zone to battle Wyoming East.
Thankfully for Oak Hill, the ups outweighed the downs.
Jumping out to an eight-run lead before the Warriors came back within three runs, the Red Devils weathered the storm for a 17-8 win.
“Two different teams out there tonight and that has been the way we have been this season, honestly,” Oak Hill head coach Chris Hendrick said. “It has been a lot of ups and downs, but we have been making some strides. We still committed seven errors, but we out-hit our errors. Games like this you can survive that, but any other game we can’t do that.”
The bulk of the damage for Oak Hill came at the top of the lineup.
Cole Legg hit two doubles, scored five times and reach base on every at-bat.
Freshman Hunter Elswick and Jayden McClain hit out of the two and three hole, respectively, and drove in nine runs, while scoring seven times.
“My top three give all out effort,” Hendrick said. “Hunter is coming. He is a freshman, but as of three games ago, he was leading the team in batting average.”
Owen Grose, who was the designated hitter Monday, hit in the clean-up spot and drove in three more runs.
All told, the top four hitters drove in 12 runs and scored 13 of the 17 runs for the Red Devils.
“I lean on Hunter and Owen a lot. I probably have the only freshman DH in the state, but he makes contact,” Hendrick said. “I would like to put him in the field more, but he knows his role right now and that is what I need out of him.”
The Warriors made things interesting in the home half of the third inning when the bats got hot and the visitors got a little loose in the field.
A two-run double from Hayden Blankenship and three Oak Hill errors led to five runs for East.
“We scrapped really well and Blankenship drove the ball hard tonight. Bryson (Hunt) got a couple hits,” Wyoming East assistant head coach Kevin Hedinger said.
Oak Hill answered the bell with three runs in the top of the fourth, but two more errors in the bottom of the inning looked as though another big inning for the Warriors was on the horizon.
With two runs already in, the home team had the bases full with two outs, but Elswick coaxed a ground-ball out to dodge the big inning.
“We are young and we are trying to grow out of that,” Hendrick said. “One inning again could have cost us the game, but as long as we build from it, get a little smarter and gain more knowledge that is what we want.”
Gabe Truman had three hits and drove in two runs out of the five-spot for the Red Devils and Cole Nelson also had a pair of hits.
Elswick weathered the two rough innings in the field to pick up the win.
“We showed a little growth there. We are trying to overcome the adversity that we keep getting faced with day in and day out,” Hendrick said. “The only way to do that is to let them roll. We have to grow and get smarter because we are not going to be five and six runs ahead of people.”
Oak Hill hosts Greater Beckley Christian Tuesday, while Wyoming East hosts Greenbrier West the same day.
