Gallery by Heather Belcher
Greenbrier East was undefeated against its Class AAA Region 3, Section 2 foes over the regular season and earned the No. 1 seed in the sectional tournament.
Friday night at Spartan Yards, the hometown boys made it a clean sweep, bringing home the sectional title in the process.
Led by a three hits and three runs batted in from Ashton Cochran, along with a two RBI night from both Peyton DeHaven and Darris Boswell, Greenbrier East dispatched a pesky Princeton squad, 13-7.
“We booted it around a little bit and did some things that we hadn’t done in the first two games of the sectionals, but it’s never easy,” Greenbrier East head coach Cory Mann said. “It’s high school baseball and it’s never easy anytime kids get amped up and try to do too much. I think you saw that early. We finally kind of settled in and found our groove for a little bit. Then we just found a way to finish it off at the end.”
Coming off a 10-0 loss on the same field three nights earlier, the Tigers could have just given a token effort.
That is not how it went down.
The team that walked off the field Tuesday night was not the same team that walked back on the field Friday night.
“They came out fighting. The heart and the fight I saw from this group just in the sectional tournament was amazing,” first year Princeton head coach Brandon Dunford said. “They could have quit after the first game with East, but they scored 27 runs over the next three games. That is impressive and I am proud of them.”
After scoring 10 runs in wins over Beckley and Oak Hill to get to the championship game, Princeton came out hot against the Spartans.
Seven batters came to the plate in the top of the first inning, but the Spartans limited the damage to one run thanks to a pair of strong defensive plays.
One run was erased when left-fielder, and all-state football player, Ian Cline nailed a runner trying to score from second on a single.
DeHaven then made a running catch at the centerfield wall on deep blast from Grant Cochran to save two more runs.
The early advantage stood until the bottom of the third innings when back-to-back walks to the first two batters, Gabe Patton and DeHaven, gave East some life.
Both runners moved up a base on a wild pitch before Ashton Cochran bounced a ground ball towards first.
The first baseman glanced at Patton racing for home and it was all Ashton Cochran needed to beat out an infield single.
On the attempt to beat the runner at first, DeHaven never missed a beat rounding third, beating the throw for a 2-1 lead.
“Peyton did a great job on that read and never stopped,” Mann said. “He found a way to get in there. It definitely sparked us and helped us open up a little bit.”
A sacrifice fly from Boswell scored Cochran for a 3-1 lead.
Greenbrier East added two more in the fourth inning with Patton and DeHaven again applying gasoline to the fire.
Patton led off the with a double and raced home on DeHaven’s single. Ian Cline added the second run of the inning, scoring from third base on a wild pitch.
Just when it looked like East was in cruise control for another win, a strange play to open the fifth inning change the complexion of the game.
A ground ball from Deegan Walters to open the inning took weird bounce around the first base bag. DeHaven gathered the ball behind the bag and threw back to first for the out, but the play was inadvertently ruled a foul ball.
“The umpire thought the ball went behind the runner, so he immediately called it foul,” Mann said.
Walters then reached on a throwing error and East seemed to come a bit unglued, allowing two runs to eventually come across.
“We will go back and talk about stuff like that, but anytime you have to make more than three outs in an inning, it’s hard. We saw that in some innings tonight,” Mann said. “We talked about that all year and we did a really good job at not having to do that in the first two (sectional) games. Tonight that wasn’t the case, but in the end of the day, we found a way to win. Hopefully we learn from it.”
Heading to the bottom of the sixth inning, the visitors were within striking distance, down only 6-3.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, the game slipped away when East sent 13 hitters to the plate and scored seven runs.
“We coach that hard. Errors happen in baseball, but we can’t let errors effect our mental ability,” Mann said. “For the most part, we are able to turn that page and stay focused. I think that was the difference in the ballgame tonight.”
Cline opened with a single and scored on a double from Cochran. The speedy Cochran scored easily on a single from Boswell which brought on a pitching change due to the pitch count rule.
“Ashton has been solid all year. I love that kid. He is always so engaged in the game,” Mann said. “He is a leader and he plays the game hard. He is just a dirt bag baseball player.”
An immediate error in the infield, two walks and a hit batsman opened the flood gates for the Spartans.
“We always say if we give out gifts, it’s going to hurt us because they will capitalize,” Dunford said. “Especially in that sixth inning, we had two errors that were very crucial.”
Greenbrier East was one run from ending the game in the sixth inning, but Princeton got out of a bases loaded jam and showed some moxie in its final at-bat of the season.
The Tigers went down swinging, scoring three runs before Gavin Bennett came on to record three straight outs to seal the win.
After having a tough night on the infield, Mann did not hesitate to give the ball to Bennett.
“We have talked about that stuff with guys all year. So what, we had an error, on to the next pitch,” Mann said. “He had a rough night defensively, but I had confidence in him there at the end and he wanted the baseball.”
An emotional Dunford stated he is convinced the sectional experience will be a building block for his team.
“Over my first year as head coach and the three as an assistant, this is the first time my guys have been in the sectional championship. They got to see what it is like,” Dunford said. “They got a taste of what it is like to get hot and make a run. Hopefully now this group will be hungry for for what East did today. We will definitely be back.”
Greenbrier East advances to the regional round where it will face the winner of section 1 between George Washington and St. Albans.
