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Sports

West Springfield Baseball Comes up One Run Short

Spartans drop Patriot District game to South County, 15-14

When your team is capable of winning the state championship, it wins these games.

West Springfield coach John James knows, based on his experience leading the Spartans to a 24-4 record and the 2010 state title, good teams must find creative ways to win. Whether it’s a 2-1 pitchers’ duel, or a 15-14 slugfest like Friday night’s game at South County, teams with aspirations for the state tournament come out ahead.

Perhaps the torch has been passed from the Spartans to the Stallions.

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“We played well,” said James, whose team dropped to 6-6 in the district with the loss. “We did enough to win this game. They just did a little bit more. It’s one of those nights.”

When Trevor Snook floated Mike Perez’s two-out pitch over the 320 sign in right field with a runner on base in the top of the seventh to give West Springfield a 14-13 lead, it looked as if the Spartans were going to put an end to South County’s perfect season. But in the bottom of the inning, the Stallions scored a pair of runs without a hit off Snook to steal the win and improve to 18-0 (12-0 in the Patriot District).

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“We’ve been scratching through. It doesn’t matter how many you’re up on us, we’ll come back at you,” said Perez, who allowed three runs in 3 1/3 innings but  gave the Stallions time to get back in the game. “We won’t back down.”

Perez, the Stallions’ leader who plans to play baseball next year at Old Dominion, launched a first-inning grand slam to center off Spartans starter J.T. Williamson. It was the first of two homers for South County in the inning, and highly touted Stallions righty Evan Beal headed out to the mound for the top of the second staked with a 6-0 lead.

On most days, that would have been more than enough for Beal, whose presence on the hill enticed about six professional scouts armed with radar guns to come to Lorton. But the lanky righty ran into trouble in the second, allowing eight runs on four hits, including a two-run shot from David Pyon.

With an 8-6 lead, Williamson couldn’t get out of the second, and gave way to lefty Michael Simko, who kept South County off the scoreboard in the third, fourth and fifth innings. Ahead 12-7 after knocking out Beal, who had thrown 97 pitches by the fourth inning, the Spartans yielded six runs in the sixth and ceded the lead. Beal and Williamson combined to get just 16 outs while allowing 19 runs and 12 walks.

But the Stallions came back, behind Snook’s homer, to take a 14-13 lead midway through the seventh.

“We were hyped but we knew we still had a job to do,” Snook said about the team’s reaction to his blast. “We had to settle in and come out and get outs. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get that last one.”

Snook fanned Blake Thompson to open the seventh and induced a groundout from Andrew Rector. But he walked Alex Carrington and Luke Bondurant to bring up Perez, who already had six RBIs on the night. Perez grounded a ball past Williamson, who had moved to third, which brought in Carrington with the tying run and moved Bondurant to third. After Tyler Frazier was walked intentionally, Snook threw a curveball in the dirt to Kyle Fairbanks that got past Pyon and allowed Bondurant to slide home with the winning run.

“We had them against the wall a couple times and just couldn’t pull it out,” Snook said.

The Spartans, undefeated outside of the Patriot District (12-6 overall) have a pair of regular season games left (home against Annandale on May 10 and on the road vs. West Potomac on May 12) before heading into the district playoffs.

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