Radford…The NRV 17U Tigers won their last game of the weekend Sunday by defeating D-bat Elite 9-1 in the Dynamic Wooden Bat Showcase that was played in Radford and Salem. The win for the Tigers earned them a 2-2 record for the weekend. They lost their first two games to Rise Windom 2-0 Friday and to Rise Berlin 3-2 Saturday morning. They finally hit their stride as they then beat Heavy Hitters from New Jersey 3-2 late Saturday. That win was a come-from-behind victory scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh. Pulaski Co. Cougar Bailey Ayers hit a walk-off single to score Austin Atkins. Ayers went two for three in the game as did Logan Altizer. Cougar player Hunter Shrewsbury was one of two at the plate knocking in one. Patrick Kepler went six innings and Trey Hodson pitched the seventh inning to get the win on the mound. The two pitchers limited the Heavy Hitters to just four hits. The Sunday win saw the Tigers score nine runs on eight hits in subduing the D-bat Elite team from up around Vienna, Virginia. Galax’s Jacob Stuart got the win as he went two innings and allowed only one hit and struck out a couple. Caleb Wetzel and Chris Martin both got in to pitch and they allowed only one run and struck two in four innings of relief.
The two early weekend games saw the Tigers only scoring two runs and they had only three hits. It was totally opposite of their performance from a week earlier in Roanoke with the aluminum bats. The three hits came by way of Wyatt Hage, Shrewsbury and Stuart.
Tiger head coach Todd Davis said, “We didn’t hit the first couple games this weekend, but our pitchers really stepped up and kept us in the games.” He then added, ”We hit much better the last two games as our pitching still carried us. Stuart, Kepler, Hudson, Shrewsbury, Hage, Wetzel and Martin all did real well on the mound. It’s different with wooden bats than with the aluminum ones.“
Stuart had three runs scored and three RBIs and drew a couple of base-on-balls for the games. Austin Atkins was three for six plus a couple walks. The two Pulaski Co. Cougar players, Shrewsbury and Ayers, had seven hits, three runs scored and three RBIs combined. Logan Altizer had four hits and scored a couple times. Wetzel scored four runs in helping the Tigers to earn a split of the four games.
The Tigers are 12-6 overall this summer and will be back in action at Randolph Macon on the 12th and 13th of August.