Region baseball: All four district champions beaten in first round

NORFOLK

Who needs an amusement park on Memorial Day when there’s the thrill ride that has become Eastern Region baseball this season?

A madcap season stayed that way Monday when the region tournament opened at Old Dominion University with enough ups and downs and twists and turns to fill a day at Busch Gardens.

Each of the four No. 1 seeds fell, and the wild day was capped by a chaotic seventh inning in the Bethel-Western Branch game that ended with Bethel coach Brett Wheeler and his starting pitcher and catcher being thrown out of the game in separate incidents.

Granby started the mayhem with a 7-3 victory over Beach District regular-season champion Landstown, and a pair of teams that finished fourth in their district – Indian River and Ocean Lakes – kept the upsets coming.

Indian River won 12-7 over Hampton, the Peninsula District’s No. 1 seed; Ocean Lakes won 8-4 against Maury, the Eastern District’s top seed; and Bethel won 10-4 over Western Branch, the Southeastern District’s No. 1 seed.

The semifinals are Wednesday at ODU: Granby vs. Indian River at 5 p.m.; Ocean Lakes vs. Bethel at 7:30 p.m.

Getting to those semifinals was no easy task, and it’s unclear if Bethel’s Wheeler and two of his top players - pitcher Justin Shively and catcher Jesse Wyatt - will be there. Under Virginia High School League guidelines, anyone thrown out of a game must sit out the ensuing contest.

Asked if he would appeal, Wheeler replied, “Oh, yeah.”

The final bit of mayhem began in the seventh inning of the Bethel-Western Branch game when umpires reversed a home run call, turning a blast by Bethel’s Zack Sanders into a double.

The ruling: the ball hit the fence and stuck. That didn’t sit well with Wheeler, and he eventually was tossed with his team leading 5-3.

Moments later, an attempt at picking Sanders off second base ended in a shoving match that brought players onto the field.

No punches were thrown, and order was restored quickly. Western Branch’s starters already were on the field, and the team’s reserves were kept away from the fray by coach Roland Wright.

Bethel’s Shively and Wyatt, among a host of Bethel players who left the dugout, were ejected.

“Both benches cleared, and they said those two were the only two who passed the pitcher’s mound,” said Bethel first baseman Shane Hoggard. “None of our players did anything, none of our players touched anybody. The only two players that touched were involved in the play, so we have no idea why they were thrown out.”

Wright had run from the third-base coaching box toward second base to argue that Sanders should’ve been called out on the play.

“We had him out,” Wright said. “I go out to talk to the umpire and all chaos breaks loose. I guess I’m lucky I was out there. I give my kids a lot of credit for keeping their composure.”

After Shively and Wyatt exited, five consecutive Bethel batters reached to break open what had been a taut, well-played game.

When the inning was finally over, Bethel had scored six runs on four hits, a walk and a hit batsman.

Said Hoggard, “We had to come back and show them why we were here,”

Western Branch finished with a 14-11 hit advantage but stranded 10 runners on base. Chad O’Connor led the Bruins with three hits, a single, double and triple, and Brad Borer added three hits.

Sanders had three hits for Bethel (18-5).

Granby 7, Landstown 3 The Comets started the day by knocking off a Landstown team that lost four of its final five games after becoming South Hampton Roads’ top-ranked team and clinching its first Beach regular-season crown since the school opened in 2001.

The Comets scored six runs in the final three innings – helped by some defensive miscues - and got a complete game from righthander Greg Abetz.

The Eagles started the season 15-2.

“Maybe it was, I guess, a lack of focus,” Landstown coach Mike Mungin said.

After a loss in the district semifinals “we regrouped and we had some good hard practices, and the kids seemed to be focused. But we didn’t make the plays we needed to make, and they capitalized on our mistakes.”

Added Landstown pitcher Kyle Lawhorn, “It’s pretty hard to get over it.”

Granby’s Patrick Callahan and Andrew Frazier each had two hits and two RBIs as the Comets chipped away against Lawhorn.

Leading 4-3 in the sixth, Callahan hit an RBI triple on a misplayed outfield fly ball, and another run scored on an outfield error.

After an infield error in the seventh, Granby’s Shon Johnson hit an RBI single.

Meanwhile, Abetz recovered from a shaky first inning. The hefty righthander scattered eight hits – only three after the first – and struck out six and walked one.

Abetz (8-3) didn’t walk a batter until there were two outs in the seventh inning. Four Eagles had two hits apiece, but Robert Perkins’ triple was the team’s only extra-base hit, and that came in the first inning.

“I hate first innings,” Abetz said. “Forget your last pitch. It’s tough, but that’s what you have to do as a pitcher.”

Landstown’s Lawhorn (6-3) allowed six runs over 52/3 innings, allowing six hits, striking out six and walking three.

Indian River 12, Hampton 7 The Braves won their fourth consecutive win-or-go-home game after finishing in a tie for fourth place in the Southeastern District.

“Living on the edge,” is how coach Steve West described the Braves in recent weeks. “They’ve grasped this moment, they’ve taken this and made something really positive out of it. I don’t see choke in them. We may get beat somewhere down the line, but the guys are ready to play and they believe in themselves.”

“We’ve had some big games, we beat some good teams, and we got on a roll,” West added. “We felt like to make it out of our district, we’re well-prepared. We’re road-tested, war-tested. You come out of our district, you got to feel like you’ve got as good a chance as anybody.”

The Braves (17-7) finished with 14 hits. Dean Ali had three hits, including two triples, and two RBIs and Sean Wolfe, the No. 9 hitter, added three hits.

“We’ve known that our district was one of the hardest to play in,” Ali said. “We’ll take advantage of mistakes, and those little hits can help you.”

The Crabbers (20-4) sent unbeaten righthander Ryan Trimble to the mound to start, and three innings in he trailed 10-1, and four of those runs were unearned.

A three-run third inning featured Lance Alley’s RBI double and Kyle Tanduran’s run-scoring triple into the gap after a routine fly ball fell in rightfield for an error.

A pair of pop flies behind first base – ruled hits – opened the door for a five-run third inning.

Ocean Lakes 8, Maury 4 Righthander Ryan Shook scattered seven hits and got three double plays from his defense to lead the Dolphins.

Shook (2-2) struck out six and walked two while allowing only two earned runs and didn’t permit an extra-base hit until the seventh inning.

“They got some runners on and we turned key double plays,” Shook said. “That’s huge. It takes a lot of stress off a pitcher.”

Both teams committed three errors, but Maury’s were more costly. The Dolphins scored four runs in the second inning on two hits and two walks, a two-run error and a wild pitch.

Commodores starter Coby Cowgill struck out nine while walking five. He walked a run in during the fifth inning before being pulled.

Shook’s RBI single and Marco Anguilli’s two-run triple in the sixth inning put the Dolphins ahead 8-1.

Ocean Lakes’ Alex Lambert had two hits and reached base four times.