Haymarket edges Waynesboro to force Game 3 of VBL series

Haymarket fended a first-round exit from the Valley Baseball League postseason with an impressive display of pitching and timely hitting Wednesday night, forcing a third and decisive game at top seed Waynesboro tonight.

Andrew Lawrence supplied the offense for the Senators with a two-run home run in the sixth on the team’s way to a 2-1 victory over the visiting Generals. Lawrence punctuated the hit with a triumphant fist pump to the sky as he rounded first base after depositing the pitch directly over the 340 feet sign in right field.

“The guys called it in the dugout, they said he was going to go big-fly,” said Matt Davis who limited the Generals to just one run while scattering seven hits in six innings of work on the mound. “That was pretty big for us. But he’s been doing that all year, getting big hits in the clutch.”

“The (previous) at-bat he threw me a fastball and left it up little bit and the (center fielder) made a nice catch running on the track,” Lawrence said, “so basically I was looking for that again. He left another one up first pitch and I just tried to put a good swing on it.”

Davis gave Haymarket one of his best outings of the year and kept Waynesboro off balance with his two-seam fastball on the corners of the plate all night. Admittedly not a strikeout pitcher (he set just four down on strikes), the left-hander had the mostly right-handed lineup of the Generals chasing two-seamers and sinkers that darted off the plate, inducing eight groundball outs.

“I didn’t have good velocity tonight, but my ball was moving a lot and the catcher, Chris Haynes, called a great game,” Davis said. “The defense played great tonight and that helped out a lot.”

“We stayed with the gameplan, staying away from their big guys and they weren’t able to make adjustments — they just wanted to pull the ball on him,” head coach Ryan Fecteau said. “His run that goes away from righties makes it pretty tough and he can usually neutralize the lefties in their lineup.”

Waynesboro’s lone run came in the fifth when Evan Webb drove in Brandon Sizemore with a one-out single to left. Austin Morgan tried to score behind Sizemore, but Haymarket left fielder D.J. Johnson cut the catcher down at the plate for the second out. Davis then got Ryan Adams to fly out to left to end the inning and the threat.

Reliever T.J. Knowlton added three shutout innings to finish the game. Knowlton struckout fiveand allowed just two hits.

Haymarket heads to Waynesboro for a 7:30 p.m. elimination game in the best-of-three first round.

The Senators are expected to send Ohio State rising sophomore Dean Wolosiansky to the mound, a 6-foot-5 right-hander who was 3-3 with a 2.77 ERA this year.

“Dean’s been one of our best pitchers all year so I like our chances,” Fecteau said.