Red Devils beat R.E. Lee for first Region III win of decade

RUSTBURG — Chris Walker wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

After leaving a 3-1 fastball over the plate for Robert E. Lee’s Joseph Wood to lead off the sixth and watching him send it into the trees and circle the bases, Rustburg’s pitcher faced Wood again with two on and two out in the seventh, guarding a four-run lead.

Walker mixed in a variety of off-speed offerings and struck out Wood with a high curveball, sealing a 6-2 victory in Monday’s Region III tournament opener.

“We threw all fastballs to him the time he hit the home run so we mixed it up with sliders and curveballs that last time,” Walker said. “He wasn’t hitting off-speed stuff, just straight fastballs.”

The victory, the Red Devils’ first in the Region III tournament this decade, sends them into today’s quarterfinal at Turner Ashby, set for 7:30 p.m.

Rustburg (17-5) got a clutch two-out hit from Brandon West, tonight’s likely starting pitcher, to break open a 1-1 tie in the third. The Red Devils’ 2-3-4 hitters — Chad Wisecarver, Walker and Dustin Arrowood — drew two-out walks off Lee pitcher Chandis Goff to set the table for West, who tagged a 3-1 pitch up the middle for a two-run single.

“They’re a good hitting team,” said Goff, who earned all seven victories for the Fighting Leemen (7-16) this season and will pitch for a Puerto Rican team this summer. “The mound gave me a hard time. There’s a huge crater in it and I couldn’t hit my spots. They capitalized on the walks and they beat us. We couldn’t do anything once we got down.”

After rallying from a 5-1 deficit to beat Jefferson Forest 6-5 in Friday’s Seminole District championship game, when Wisecarver hit a tying grand slam in the sixth and Arrowood the game-winning solo home run in the seventh, the Red Devils continued to roll.

“That was a great comeback,” Rustburg coach Barry Godsey said of the JF game. “We kept battling. Same thing today. When they tied it up at 1-1, we battled right back to take the lead. Chris battled and threw strikes. It was a good win.”

The Red Devils got two hits from clean-up hitter Arrowood, who drove in Sam Calohan with their last run in a three-run fourth, and seventh batter Kerry Cofer.

“Up and down the lineup, everybody has contributed,” Godsey said. “I’ve been preaching the team concept all season. Different guys have stepped up in different games.”

Though they made two errors against Lee, the Red Devils have thrived defensively this season.

“Defense is probably the best part of our game, that and pitching,” Arrowood said. “We’ve been getting good fielding, good pitching and keeping the bats alive.

“Winning the district tournament gave us a lot of confidence,” he added. “We hope to get up early (today at TA) and battle through the whole game.”

“We did play pretty good defense (and) it’s going to take the same thing (today),” Godsey added. “We want to keep playing our style of baseball. Play our game and see what happens.”