Christiansburg— The game was supposed to be played at Pulaski Co. The Cougar Field was unplayable, so the game was moved to Christiansburg. Whoever said it doesn’t matter how you start should have seen the first inning for the Blue Demons. Christiansburg scored four times on five hits and then held off the Cougars’ late rally for a 4-3 River Ridge district win.

The Blue Demons sent nine batters to the plate in the bottom of the first. They had five hits, stole two bases and had one walk. They also got three wild pitches, and four of their hits in the inning didn’t get out of the infield grass. In fact, three of the hits ended up on the infield grass.

After that bizarre first inning, Cougar starting pitcher Chris Remington settled down and scattered just two Blue Demon hits over the next four innings.

The Cougars had a hard time against Christiansburg pitcher, Brady Kirtner. Kirtner struck out 11 batters and gave up only three hits as he went six innings. The Cougars finally got to him in the bottom sixth. Caleb Kirtner led the inning off drawing a walk. Logan Burchett also walked as did Jon Osteen to load the bases. Trent Blankenship would then lace a single to center to score Kirtner. Chris Remington would hit a sacrifice fly to center field to cut the Blue Demons lead in half, 4-2. The next two batters would strike and ground out to end the inning.

Pulaski Co. (6-5,1-3) would then come up in the seventh with a new Christiansburg hurler, Zach Taft on the mound. Braeden Blevins would walk, move to second on a pass ball and go to third on a wild pitch after one out. Punky Foster would hit a liner to left field for a hit, scoring Blevins. It was now 4-3 with only one out. Kellen Dalton was sent in to run and proceeded to steal second. Logan Burchett would then draw a base on balls. Drew Mabry would pinch run for him. Dalton and Mabry would then pull off a double steal and the Cougars were in business. There were runners at second and third and still only one out in the seventh.

The Blue Demons would change pitchers and bring Zach Durham to the mound. With the top of the line-up coming to the plate, the Cougars needed just a single in the right place and they would go-ahead for the first time in the game. Durham would strike out both Osteen and Blankenship looking to end the game and Christiansburg had the win. Six of the 13 Cougar strike-outs were called looking.

The Demons leadoff man, Will Stout, went three for four and scored a run. Reagan Harris, Zalen Akers and Ryan McFee scored a one run apiece and had one hit each.

Pulaski Co. was on the wrong end of a couple of calls that went against them. One was what looked like a foul ball off a Christiansburg batter’s foot and was called a base hit that didn’t travel 10 feet. That play led to the first run of the game. Then in the fifth inning, the Christiansburg pitcher raced to a Cougar batted ball, about halfway between home and third base. It looked and sounded as though the pitcher touched the ball and knocked it into foul territory. The play was called foul ball and a couple of pitches later with a runner on first, was called out looking at a third strike.

“It was a heck of a high school baseball game,” said Cougar head coach Jared King. “Their starting pitcher really kept our batters off balance for six innings. We battled and we had our chances to tie or go ahead. It’s hard to overcome 13 strike-outs that our batters had. I thought Remington (Chris) pitched well after that first inning. They had, what, four hits in the first that wouldn’t have add up to 90 feet or so.”

Christiansburg – 4 R – 8 H – 0 E – 8 LOB – WP- Kirtner

Pulaski Co. – 3 R – 3 H – 2 E – 5 LOB – LP – Remington (0-1)