BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
BRISTOL, Va. – The rebuilding continues at DeVault Stadium.
After losing eight starters off last year’s team, the Virginia Intermont baseball team is still looking for positives for the 2009 season. After Tuesday, they’re still looking.
The Cobras were shut out 9-0 by Lincoln Memorial University at Boyce Cox Field in the front-end of a double-header Tuesday afternoon. In the nightcap, the Railsplitters scored 13 runs in the top of the first inning at en route to a 18-0 win.
VI, which has lost nine straight, dropped to 1-24 on the season.
Freshman starting pitcher Robbie Cross kept the Cobras within striking distance during the first six innings of the opener, but the Railsplitters torched the VI bullpen for four runs in the seventh inning.
“They came out and did exactly what they did the last time,” senior Jay Steel, VI’s lone returning starter from last season, said. “We always seem to have that one big inning that comes back and gets us.”
LMU actually had two of those innings against the Cobras in the day’s first game.
After Cross cruised through the first three innings, the Railsplitters pushed three runs across the plate through a passed ball and two sacrifices in the fourth. Nick Langley accounted for the only other earned run off of Cross, when he crushed a two-strike fastball onto the road behind the right-field wall.
The Cobras, however, were unable to take advantage of Stout’s solid start, managing just three hits off the combination of LMU’s Steven Starbird, who pitched six innings, and Joseph Salerno, who closed out the seventh.
“For six innings, we played some really good baseball,” VI coach Josh Swain said. “Our bullpen is a little thin, so when we get down to the bottom of the bullpen it kind of gets out of hand.
“But for a freshman, Robbie Stout came out and threw a really good ball game. If we can pick up our sticks a little bit, we’ll be alright.”
Although the loss drops Stout’s season record to 0-3, Swain was happy to see his young pitcher bounce back from Friday’s 12-0 loss to Appalachian Athletic Conference foe Covenant. Stout say his ERA balloon to 13.50 after his seven innings of work against the Scots.
“To be a freshman and to be able to bounce back, that’s big for us,” Swain said. “We’re going to continue to work and continue to get better day-by-day. Hopefully by the end of the year we’re a different ball club.”
Things only got worse for the Cobras in the back-end of the double-header. The Cobras used three different pitchers, but couldn’t stop LMU’s offense.
scampbell@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2543
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