James River’s baseball, softball and two soccer teams had little trouble advancing to the Region C semi-finals in their respective sports Tuesday evenining.
The girls soccer team plays Radford today (Wednesday) at 5:30 p.m. at George Wythe High School in Wytheville.
On Thursday, the baseball team plays Glenvar at 7 p.m. at Kiwanis Field in Salem, the softball team plays Holston at Damascus Middle School in Holston at 5 p.m., and the boys soccer team plays Radford at 6 p.m. at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista.
The baseball team’s defense shone with four inning-ending double plays while its offense battered Grayson County pitching for 14 runs in the 14-5 regional quarter-final game in Springwood.
Senior Andrew Fields didn’t allow a run in the four innings he pitched, even though Grayson put runners on in each inning.
The Knights bats were hot from the start. They scored 7 runs in the first inning, then Ryan Hepler led of the bottom of the second with a shot over the left field fence. The senior catcher also had a double and two RBIs.
Brent Cummings and Grant Sowder also doubled up on hits and RBIs.
Jenna Sprinkle’s two-run homer in the fifth sealed the win at Grayson Conty for the Lady Knights, who were the only River team playing on a foreign field Tuesday.
Again, solid pitching and defense kept Grayson off the scoreboard in the 8-0 shutout.
The girls soccer team was unchallenged in a 14-1 win over Bland County in the first of the two soccer games at JRHS Tuesday, while the boys collected three goals from K.W. King and two from Ethan Brannan to end Fort Chiswell’s season, 5-1.
