Orange boys bounce back

By Brittany Stempien
Review Sports Correspondent
Published: April 24, 2008

The Orange County High School varsity baseball team raised their season record to 8-5 with their district victory over Western Albemarle at home Friday night, with the score of 8-1.
Losing their previous district game 10-3 against Louisa Tuesday night, the fighting Hornets came back strong to defeat the Warriors of Western Albemarle.
D.J. Brown pitched a complete game for Orange, only allowing one run on four hits, and striking out six batters.
Orange got things started in their half of the first inning, scoring two runs off Lazaro Torres’ double to deep centerfield.
In the top of the third, Tyler Waugh made a spectacular play at first base, diving into the dirt to catch a line drive, which set the pace for the rest of the inning by not allowing any Warrior to reach base. A groundout and a fly-out ended the inning.
In the home third, two back-to-back RBI singles by Derrick Justice and Lazaro Torres increased Orange’s lead to 4-0.
At that point, Western Albemarle coach Skip Hudgins handed the ball over to Ryan Hughes. Previous pitcher Wade Hughes took over at third base.
Ryan Hughes caught Hornet Brandon Morris stealing, and then walked Trey Maupin. The next batter to come to the plate hit a groundball on which Derrick Justice tried to score, but he was caught in a rundown. On his way back to third, he crashed into the man covered third base and was thrown out of the game for the apparent aggressive maneuver.
This got the crowd, both dugouts, and Tyler Waugh fired up; who grounded out to the end the very intense inning.
Orange tacked on another two runs in their fourth inning, courtesy of Colsten Bayless’ RBI double past the diving centerfielder and Chris Bittner’s RBI base hit.
Entering the fifth inning, Orange was ahead 6-0.
Several Orange errors and a base hit from Warrior Peter Hurley loaded the bases for pitcher Ryan Hughes.
He hit a ground ball which Hornet third baseman Luke Dulin decided to come home with, but he threw too high resulting in an error and the Warrior’s first and only run of the game.
With the bases still loaded in the top of the fifth, dominant D.J. Brown struck out the next two batters to end the inning.
In the home fifth, Albemarle pitcher Ryan Hughes had some power pitches of his own to throw; striking out three of the four batters that came to the plate.
A run-scoring double-steal and a Trey Maupin RBI single gave Orange two more runs in the home sixth.
They entered the seventh inning with a commanding lead of 8-1.
Things looked promising for the Warriors in the seventh, after two men reached base on en error and a hit. But D.J. Brown shut things down for them with two strikeouts and a fly-out to end the game.
“It’s very important for us as a team to have D.J. Brown pitch the way he has pitched in the last few games,” said Orange Coach Jesse Lohr. “DJ ‘Go Go Gadget’ is a great pitcher [now] and will be even after high school. He has all of the tools to be a great pitcher at the high school level and beyond. When he’s on, it’s cool to sit back and watch. It’s like poetry in motion!”
Lohr added, “I’m very proud of our team; for learning how to play the game the right way, learning from our early season mistakes, and even for DJ for bouncing back from early season issues. Now I believe we’re ready to make some noise the rest of the season!”
The Hornets have won five of their last six games, and are ready to come back to action Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. against the Fluvanna Flucos in Fluvanna.