By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
The Fluvanna County High baseball squad hosted the Knights from Spotsylvania High on March 25. Fluco hurler J.J. Glasscock shut down the Knights in the top of the first and the top of the second. The Flucos failed to score in the bottom of first. The bottom of the second was another story altogether. The Flucos sent 15 batters to the plate and scored 11 runs.
The Flucos put runners on first and second on a hit batter and a walk. Centerfielder Nathan Gragg laid down a perfect bunt. He beat the throw to first for a base hit and the throw sailed past the first baseman into the right field corner. Two runners scored and Gragg ended up on third. A fly ball to center was misplayed scoring Gragg and putting Christian Lounsbury on base. Left fielder Tyler Coleman hit a drive to right that cleared the right fielders head and went for a double, scoring one. Lead-off batter Ryan Mann and Jacob Butler followed with singles. After a run scoring ground out, clean-up batter Grant Brown hit a long drive to left center that hit at the back of the fence. At this point, the Flucos had scored six and it looked very likely that the game was over.
Joe Gomez followed Browns double with a solid single. The Knights then made three straight errors. Coleman looped a single to left for his second hit of the inning and the Flucos were done, with 11 runs in. In the fourth, the Flucos added one more run, on a walk, an error and a second perfect bunt by Gragg to fill the bases. A wild pitch scored the final run of the game.
Glasscock, who demonstrated a moving fast ball and a nasty curve, was nearly unhittable. In five innings, he struck out eight and allowed only one hit. The Fluco defense was solid, but the Knights generated very few hard-hit balls. In high school baseball, if a team leads by 11 or more after the trailing team has batted five times, the game is over on the mercy rule. As a result, Glasscock only had to pitch five innings.
After the game, Coach Joel Gray said that his teams bats have recently erupted. The Flucos lost their first two games, but have now won three in a row. On March 19 they scored 23 runs in beating Broadway high schools.
