CHAMPIONS!

COVINGTON—Though they admitted they would have liked to clinch their first Valley Baseball League championship on their home field, the Haymarket Senators weren’t interested in sending the series back to Battlefield High School.

It didn’t hurt that the Senators had a man familiar with Covington’s Casey Field.

Haymarket catcher Evan Noell, who played for the Lumberjacks in 2007 and 2008, hit his first home run of the year and scored two runs to carry his club to the league title with a 6-1 win in Game 4 Wednesday night.

“I really wanted to win it here, that was huge,” said Noell, a rising Coastal Carolina junior.

“It’s too good to be true,” said third baseman Greg Hopkins. “It’s right out of a book. He said before the series that this is too perfect. He wanted it more than anybody.”

More than 50 Senators fans traveled the nearly 200 miles to Covington to witness the historic victory, either riding a chartered bus or by their own vehicles.

Noell entered the game with a .196 average, four RBI and just a .260 slugging percentage this year and is hardly the hitter to expect the kind of performance he put together Wednesday night.

But no sooner had public address announcer Mark Pifer asked the crowd to welcome their former player back than Noell laced a 2-and-1 offering over the left field fence.

“Phil [Myers, an assistant coach] called it. A couple days ago he said Evan was going to be the hero,” said Haymarket head coach Ryan Fecteau, who put his hands on his head in disbelief as Noell rounded the bases in the third inning. “That was pretty cool it being his third year and [Covington] being the team he played with for two years.

“Evan struggled all year offensively,” Fecteau continued, “but he’s been so solid behind the plate and guys love throwing to him. I told him I honestly didn’t care what he did offensively, we needed him behind the plate. Today he came out in a big way.”

Noell, who was 2 for 2 with three RBI and two walks, also turned 21 yesterday, taking his own personal birthday bash to the ball field.

“I just got a pitch up in the zone and I hit it well,” Noell said. “I couldn’t ask for a better present.”

Noell’s batterymate, starter Bob Van Woert, took the pitching rubber on short rest and baffled the ’Jacks’ lineup through all six-plus innings he pitched.

Van Woert, a right-hander from the University of Connecticut, struck out six and walked only two—including one to open the seventh—on 79 pitches for the Senators (29-23). He helped himself several times by making defensive plays off the mound. In both the fourth and fifth innings Van Woert fielded his position with cat-like reflexes. He even ended the fifth by deftly scooping a low bouncer to his left then flipped the ball to first baseman Jim Vahalik.

“I was just trying to pick myself up a little bit. I trust all the guys behind me,” Van Woert said. “I was able to get some weak ground balls and help myself out.”

Van Woert, who won two games in the finals and one in the semifinals, used his changeup to near perfection, leaving Covington hitters lunging after pitches all night.

“He was throwing well and he was down in the zone all day,” Noell said. “He was getting them to swing over the changeups and it’s a credit to him, he looked great.”

“That was definitely my best pitch tonight,” Van Woert said. “My fastball wasn’t the best on short rest, but the changeup, from the first pitch I had it. I hit spots with it and it worked out good for me.”

Reliever Mark Andrews worked his way into and then out of a two-on, none-out jam in the seventh with a performance reminiscent of what he did Sunday in Covington when he pitched five and two-thirds innings of shutout baseball.

After a sacrifice bunt advanced the runners to third and second, Andrews struck out the next two batters, including leadoff man Lammar Guy who led this year with a .314 average. Guy also hit his second homer of the year in the third to tie the game at a run apiece.

Andrews then worked a perfect eighth and a scoreless ninth to secure the win.

“He was just something else tonight,” Fecteau said. “He battles every time. The kid throws 83 [mph] and he gets guys out.”

It was Noell, however, who made up for the offense absent from the lineup with all-star third baseman Greg Hopkins sidelined after being hit on the left forearm and hand in each of the past two games of the series, the most recent in Monday’s 5-3 win.

Hopkins cheered his teammates on from the top step of the dugout, relishing in Noell’s sudden burst of power.

“He’s one of my best friends on the team,” said Hopkins, who was one of the first out to greet either the pitcher or the catcher with a fist-bump after each inning. “It couldn’t have happened to a better friend. He’s The Man, tell him I said that.”

The Lumberjacks (26-27) tried anything they could to end their struggles in the finals, even switching to purple alternate jersey tops for the contest.

But the new uniforms were no match for Noell and a determined Senators club.

“I honestly can’t say enough about all of them,” Fecteau said. “That was really something special.”