HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL: Abingdon Wins Region IV Title

PULASKI, Va. — Preston Pionk had never hit a home run in his life. Not in high school, not in junior varsity, not in Little League, not in T-ball. Not even in batting practice.

So when the Abingdon outfielder tagged Dylan Kidd’s 1-1 fastball towards the 19-foot high right field wall at Calfee Park in the top of the ninth inning Friday, he ran as hard as he could from the left-handed batter’s box.

Pionk was thinking extra bases, not a homer.

Teammate Justin Malone knew differently.

“No doubt in my mind,” Malone said. “When he hit it, it was gone.”

Malone was right, and Pionk trotted around the bases with his first homer, lifting the Falcons to a stunning 11-10 win over heavily-favored Hidden Valley in the Region IV baseball finals.

Abingdon (19-7) will host the Region III runner-up — either Waynesboro or Alleghany — on Tuesday in the Group AA quarterfinals. The Titans (21-4) must travel to the Region III winner the same day.

While Pionk’s homer certainly was the most dramatic moment in an epic contest which featured a Falcon rally from a six-run deficit and a big hit by Hidden Valley’s much-hyped slugger, Zack Helgeson, it still needed three more outs to enter the books as the winner.

Predictably, it wasn’t easy. The Titans used two walks, a passed ball and a wild pitch to push the winning runs to first and third with one out before Zach Witt (8-2), Abingdon’s fourth pitcher, ran a 2-0 sinker on the fists of catcher Zane Vess.

The result was a 6-4-3 double play, ending a 3-hour, 34-minute marathon.

“Unbelievable,” Abingdon coach Mark Francisco said. “I haven’t been around too many like that one.”

Until the sixth inning, it looked like the Falcons were game but overmatched. Hidden Valley ran through Abingdon’s second-line pitchers, scoring in each of the first five innings to methodically build a 9-3 lead.

In fact, Francisco even marched out freshman Alexander Nadler, who had thrown five innings all season, to finish out the fifth.

But Francisco had a message for his team before they hit in the sixth.

“Let’s start swinging the bats, just chip away and get back into this thing,” he said before leaving for the third base coaches’ box.

He stayed there for about 20 minutes as the Falcons worked over the back end of the Titans’ pitching staff. With the help of four walks and four singles, the last a two-out, first-pitch, two-run hit from Josh Barker, Abingdon hung a 6 on the board for a 9-9 tie.

After Nadler stopped Hidden Valley in the sixth, the Falcons took their first lead when Matt Rasnake’s sacrifice fly – his third RBI in an 0-for-4 afternoon – scored Pionk to make it 10-9.

But Helgeson, who won a nation-wide prep home run-hitting contest last summer in St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, showed his strength when he rode Nadler’s outside fastball well over the wall in right with one out in the seventh, tying the game.

Although it was the last pitch of Nadler’s unexpected appearance, his teammates and coaches knew how important a role he played.

“For a freshman to come in and pitch like that in this game,” Malone said, “I was impressed. I’m giving him a pat on the back.”

Witt, who tossed five innings Wednesday to finish a 10-4 quarterfinal win over Salem, stranded the winning runs on base in the seventh and eighth inning. The eighth inning escape was made possible by Pionk’s twisting catch of a Brett Mollenhauer liner in left-center.

Moments later, Pionk unloaded his dramatic homer, pumping both fists in the air as he rounded first and then clasping both sides of his batting helmet in disbelief as he rounded third.

“I was just looking to get a base hit so that Justin could get me home,” Pionk said. “I was hoping to get a double or triple out of it, but when they [called it a home run], I couldn’t believe it.”

While Pionk and Abingdon lingered around the ball yard for several minutes before hurrying back home for last night’s graduation, Titans coach Jason Taylor spoke quietly while his players looked down at their cuticles, feet or cell phones.

“We didn’t have our number one [pitcher] and they didn’t have their number one [pitcher],” he said. “But give Abingdon credit. Any time we left a pitch up in the [strike] zone, they hit it.”

Five of the Falcons’ 14 hits came from Malone, one of their six seniors.

“We might be an hour late for graduation,” he said, “but I think we’re going to walk in with [the championship] trophy just to see how they react.”