PREP BASEBALL: Blue Devils defeat Castlewood in Region D

BY ANTHONY STEVENS
Sports Correspondent

CASTLEWOOD, Va. — Gate City is playing its best baseball at the right time of year. Winning their fourth straight game and fresh off their Clinch Mountain District tournament championship, Gate City defeated Cumberland District one-seed Castlewood 4-1 to advance to the Region D semifinals, which will be played at Honaker today.

The Blue Devils haven’t played any cupcakes during the winning streak, and have defeated Southwest Virginia powerhouses J.J. Kelly, Virginia High, John Battle, and Castlewood, who reached the state quarterfinals last year. Gate City’s (12-8) resurgence is due to catcher Dustin Jones and pitcher Jordan Estepp becoming healthy, as each missed a considerable part of the season with an injury.

Both contributed to the win over Castlewood. Estepp pitched a complete-game, allowing only one run on five hits while striking out seven. It was his second game back on the mound – he also won the CMD semifinal game against the Bearcats.

“It feels great,” Estepp said. “I couldn’t come back at a more perfect time. I’m just happy to be back.

“We knew Castlewood had a good team and we would have to come to play. My defense was just great, they made all the plays.”

Defense was the difference in the game, as each of the teams only scored one earned run. Castlewood (13-8) was hurt by four errors that led to three unearned runs.

“You give a team like Gate City three runs, you’re not going to win the game,” Castlewood coach Jarrod Sparks said. “We lose three [seniors] and I hate it for them, but we have a good group of 14 kids back and we’ll go to work for next year.”

Gate City received most of its offense from senior Buck Eldridge. He played the leadoff role to perfection, scoring three of the Blue Devils’ four runs. Eldridge was 2-for-4, reached on an error and had three stolen bases.

“Everyone did a great job of getting a clutch hit today,” Eldridge said. “Everyone is hitting the ball better, seeing it better. We’ve cut down a lot on our errors and that has helped a tremendous amount. It was a great game – I was nervous until the last out.”

Eldridge started the game with a single and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Wes Hughes after the inning was extended by a Castlewood miscue.

Castlewood tied the game in the fourth inning, when Chris Smith doubled down the right field line and scored when Ryan Phillips hit a ground rule double to tie the game at 1-1.

Eldridge then scored the go-ahead run on a single by Estepp.

“I really want to congratulate my guys for executing when they really needed to,” GC coach Shannon Carter said. “It doesn’t matter how you win now, its just about winning at this time of year. But give the Castlewood pitcher credit – he kept us off-balance the entire day.”

Gate City 100 010 2–4 5 1
Castlewood 000 100 0–1 5 4
Estepp and Jones. C. Phillips and Byerley. W—Estepp (3-1). L—C. Phillips (3-5). HR—none.

Honaker 10, J.I. Burton 6
For the second consecutive year the Honaker Tigers have ended the baseball season for J.I. Burton. The Tigers outlasted J.I. Burton 10-6 at Harding Field to advance to the Region D semifinals against Gate City today.

“I feel real fortunate that we’ll be playing again,” Honaker coach Tom Harding said. “We played more like it was a scrimmage game at the beginning of the year than the 22nd game of the year. I just don’t feel good about this game at all.”

The game was ugly for a regional contest. The teams combined for 14 walks, six errors and two hit batters. Neither starting pitcher made it out of the second inning. And the contest was a marathon, taking 1 hour and 20 minutes to play the first two innings, alone.

Honaker (19-3) had a better game defensively. Third baseman Kevin Lester and shortstop Clay Smith made a couple of outstanding plays.

“They made some good defensive plays and that was the difference,” J.I. Burton coach Mack Shupe said. “I thought we scored enough runs to win but we just made too many errors.”

Aaron Whited had another big game offensively for Honaker going 2-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Whited had a critical two-out, two-run single in the second inning to give the Tigers the lead.

Adam Honaker was 2-for-2 with 3 RBIs and David Keene also had two hits.

Freshman Derrick Murphy entered the game in relief in the second inning and gained his fourth win of the year. Murphy had 10 strikeouts in five plus innings of work.

J.I. Burton (15-7) junior Will Godsey was a one-man wrecking crew. Godsey had four of the Raiders seven hits and drove in four of their six runs. Ethan Stewart added two hits and scored two runs.

J.I. Burton 131 100 0 – 6 7 4
Honaker 342 001 x -10 8 2
Daniels, Begley (2) and E. Stewart. Honaker, Murphy (2) and H. Wilson. W—Murphy (4-0). L—Daniels (5-2). HR—none.