Rustburg comes up short

By Nathan Warters

Published: July 25, 2008

City Stadium hasn’t been kind to Rustburg the last few days. The team comprised almost entirely of Rustburg High School players lost 21-0 Thursday in its first game there in the NABF World Series. Friday night in the elimination round, it fell 7-3 there to the Troy (Ohio) Bombers.

It was a different team elsewhere. It won 2-1 at Liberty University earlier in the day Friday to advance to the elimination round. And before Thursday’s drubbing, it won 1-0 on its home field.

“I don’t know, maybe it was the awe of it,” said Rustburg coach Bill Booker of City Stadium. “We just got off to a bad start in those first two innings. We had our opportunities. We just didn’t get it done.”

Rustburg fell behind 5-0 against Troy, and despite mini-rallies in the third, fourth and seventh innings, it couldn’t claw back in it.

Bombers pitcher Josh Smiley had something to do with that. He threw a complete game, allowing six hits and two earned runs while striking out three.

Rustburg cut Troy’s lead to 5-2 with single runs in the third and fourth, but the Bombers built their lead to 7-2 on Luke Wildermuth’s RBI sacrifice fly and Cody Shafer’s RBI single in the fifth.

Troy improved to 3-1 in the tournament, with its only loss coming in its opener against Salisbury. It advances to play in the championship round today at 10 a.m. at City Stadium.

“I tell you, when you travel almost 500 miles to play baseball, you better be ready to play, and I think they were ready,” Troymanager Tim Shafer said.

Chris Walker led the way offensively for Rustburg with a triple and two RBIs. He pitched the final five innings, and allowed two runs.

“They found the holes and hit them in the gaps in the outfield area,” Walker said. “They did a good job with that.”

Rustburg finished the tournament with a 2-2 record.

“Two and two ain’t bad in a World Series,” Booker said.

Frederick Junior Legion won a 1-0 pitcher’s duel over the Long Island Junior Ducks in the other elimination game at City Stadium. Winning pitcher Zach Jones threw a complete-game shutout, allowing only three hits and two walks while striking out four.

Frederick advances to the championship round. It will play today at 1 p.m. at City Stadium.

Frederick scored its only run in the top of the first. Joey Zuniga led the game off with a walk. He moved to second on Eddie Shelton’s single and then scored on a wild pitch that went to the backstop.

Ducks pitcher Ian Hnatov shut down Frederick the rest of the way, holding it to five hits over the final six innings.

Long Island managed only one hit in the final five innings, a David Hall single in the bottom of the fourth.

Frederick’s Dougie Sims (2-for-2) was the only player in the game with multiple hits.

All nine hits between the two teams were singles.