Late Park View surge ends conference bid, season for New Kent

New Kent pitcher Bryan Brooks has a look of disbelief as the home plate umpire signals that a Park View base runner avoided his tag following a wild pitch situation in the seventh inning.

Alan Chamberlain photo

Back in March, New Kent’s host Trojans thumped Park View-South Hill’s Dragons to the tune of 11-1 in a contest called after five innings due to high school baseball’s slaughter rule.

Tuesday afternoon, the teams met again on the same field, this time in the opening round of the Conference 25 baseball tournament. And the latest contest bore no resemblance to what occurred just over two months ago.

Through five innings, New Kent had built a respectable 4-0 lead. But over the final two frames, the Dragons exacted a measure of revenge for the earlier setback, scoring 11 runs on nine hits to eliminate the Trojans 11-8.

“I don’t know where that came from,” a stunned New Kent head coach Michael Kuper said afterward about the Dragon awakening.

“They just started hitting the ball all of a sudden,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine the way the game plays out sometimes, but it was not from a lack of heart or effort from us.”

New Kent appeared to be in cruise control behind the pitching of Mitchell Metheny who shackled the Dragons on two hits through five innings. The Trojan offense, meanwhile,
handed their pitcher a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Steven Carpenter doubled to the fence in left and scored on Cameron Downer’s single to right.

Christian Hamby led off the Trojan third with a triple to left-center. He later scored the second run on a Metheny sacrifice fly.

Hamby again displayed power, this time blasting a fifth inning leadoff homer over the center field fence. Shawn Cousins then walked and scored on a Jared Mitchell double to open the 4-0 advantage.

Metheny, however, ran into trouble in the sixth as an error, single, and walk loaded the bases. Park View’s J.W. Murray doubled into the left field corner, driving in two. Stephen Wolfe followed with a RBI single to left to close the gap to one. Bryan Brooks relieved Metheny on the mound to end the uprising, but not before the Dragons tied the contest with a RBI sacrifice fly.

“Metheny had a good outing and he was rolling along, but he just got tired so we made the move [bringing in Brooks],” Kuper said.

Carpenter walked to lead off the Trojan sixth. He stole second and raced to third when the throw from behind the plate sailed into center. With one away, the Dragons intentionally walked the dangerous Hamby to get to Cousins, but Cousins made them pay with a two-run double to center, opening a 6-4 advantage heading into the seventh and final frame.

Park View’s Josh Hadley jumped on Brooks’ first pitch in the seventh for a single. The next batter, Gage Clary, stroked an apparent double play ball toward shortstop, but Carpenter committed an uncharacteristic error that put two aboard. Thereafter, the Dragons shelled Brooks for four straight singles and four runs to take the lead for good.

“The ball just got up on [Carpenter] and he didn’t field it cleanly,” Kuper said, adding that the unfortunate miscue became a game-changing moment.

As for not reaching into his bullpen to relieve Brooks sooner, the coach said, “[Brooks] was in a groove and it wasn’t like he was walking people. [The Dragons] were getting hits.”

New Kent launched a last ditch effort to salvage the win in the bottom of the seventh. Dragon reliever Brandon Lewis bounced a pitch off leadoff batter Brennan Gray and surrendered a towering double to deep center off the bat of Mason Tate. Brooks dropped a single in shallow center to drive in Gray. Tate later scored on a fielder’s choice, but the comeback and season ended there.

“We’ve had a good season and lots of good things happened, but it just didn’t go our way today,” said Kuper whose team finished 11-10. “I’m disappointed for our seniors. They did a lot for this program. And I’m proud of this team because they kept on fighting and never gave up.”