Gallery by Greg Barnett
Bluefield, Va. – Stringing together quality pitching performances has been the Achilles heel of Wyoming East’s baseball team this season.
Thursday at Bowen Field in Bluefield the Warriors got the pitching performance they needed.
It was the one hit across seven innings that doomed them.
Bluefield starter Kerry Collins struck out 13 batters in five innings of work allowing two unearned runs as the Beavers defeated East 4-2, claiming the Class AA Region 3, Section 1 championship.
Despite their woes at the plate, the Warriors put pressure on Bluefield early, putting the ball in play to force two errors. The only hit for East was a timely one with Garrett Mitchell hitting a single into right that scored Zach Hunt with a misplay on the ball allowing Jacob Howard to come home in behind him.
The problem came immediately afterwards as Collins struck out 13 of the next 14 batters to eliminate the possibility of errors ruining the day.
“I really just threw it as hard as I could in the strike zone and they weren’t really – they put the bat on the fastball a little bit,” Collins said. “When I went to the slider it was really good and I could put it in the zone or I could get them chasing low and away. Everything was working great.”
While Collins did his part on the mound, the Beavers’ mental errors nearly wasted his brilliant effort.
After scoring their first run in the bottom of the first, the Beavers lost two base runners on miscues with one trying to stretch a single into a double and the other getting picked off first base.
Hunter Harmon’s RBI single that scored Caleb Fuller was the first as the former was thrown out after the cutoff man tossed the ball to second.
The second inning yielded more of the same with the final out coming in-between third and home after Bluefield reached on a fielder’s choice. Ryker Brown, who drew a walk to leadoff the inning, was caught in a rundown, keeping the Beavers at bay.
“We talk about that because we can’t rely on striking out a ton of batters on the other side to make up for it,” Bluefield head coach Jimmy Redmond said. “We have to make plays behind our pitchers and I really wasn’t satisfied with that but give Wyoming East its due. Whitten came to play and threw us off balance. He maxed out almost 100 pitches but we had to go with small ball because we couldn’t rely on doubles and home runs with how he kept us off balance.”
Whitten held steady and the East defense mostly rebounded a night after committing 10 errors but when the fielding miscues came, they came at back-breaking moments such as the bottom of the fourth inning.
A leadoff walk to Harmon was followed by Collins hitting into and error at second base. Ryker Brown’s RBI single plated Harmon to tie the game with both runners moving into scoring position on the throw to the plate. The error haunted East as a one-out sac fly courtesy of Will Youther allowed the runner (Malik Robinson who courtesy ran for Collins) that reached on the error to score.
Afterwards Whiten was steady again until a pair of errors in the bottom of the sixth allowed the final Beaver run to cross.
“Tanner’s an excellent pitcher, we just had trouble getting him to believe in it,” Wyoming East head coach Ron “Chief” Mayhew said. “Once he got some confidence – I wish he had more at the beginning of the year. He’s a good pitcher. I thought we could win today and we’d have (Garrett) Mitchell to pitch tomorrow. But I’m proud of them.”
Mayhew, who is approaching 50 years as a head coach at Pineville and Wyoming East, has mulled whether or not this year would be his last but as of now wants to return next season.
“I’m going to try one more year,” Mayhew said. “We’ve got everybody coming back pretty much.”
For Bluefield the sectional title is the Beavers’ second consecutive one, sending them back to the regional round where they’ll face the Section 2 winner – either Independence or Shady Spring – the week of May 23.
“We can pick up a team that’s still playing in triple-A or single-A to stay sharp,” Redmond said. “If not though we rest and work on some things to get better. We can’t really rely on striking out 13 or 14 guys in the regionals so we’re going to have to work on the defensive ins and outs and some situational stuff but it’ll help us rest our arms and work on some things.”
East concludes its season at 14-10 while Bluefield improves to 18-6.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
WE: 200 000 0 – 2 1 3
B: 100 201 x – 4 6 2
Pitching and Catching – WE: Tanner Whitten and Zach Hunt; B: Kerry Collins (5 IP), Ryker Brown and Bryson Redmond. WP: Collins, LP: Whitten.
Hitting – WE: Garrett Mitchell 1-3 (RBI); B: Bryson Redmond 1-3, Caleb Fuller 1-2, Hunter Harmon 1-2 (RBI), Kerry Collins 1-3, Ryker Brown 1-2 (RBI), Harris 1-3, Youther 0-2 (RBI).
