From the March 30, 1994 edition of The New Castle Record
The Craig County baseball team found the going rough in the first two games of the season. The Rockets hoped to get the jump on their opponents after a trip to Florida, but that wasn’t the case in season opening losses to Narrows and Shawsville.
“We made a lot of mistakes, and those are the kinds of things I thought we’d taken care of in Florida,” said Rocket coach Mark Baetz. “Fortunately, they were two non-district games, but I thought, man-for-man, we were better than both of those clubs.”
Craig opened with a 16-6 loss at Narrows last Wednesday. The Rockets were cruising along with a 6-5 lead after four and a half innings, but disaster struck in the bottom of the fifth as the Green Wave scored 11 unearned runs.
The Rockets finished with none errors for the game and of the 16 runs scored by Narrows, only one was earned. James Fisher was the tough-luck loser for the Rockets, pitching four and a third innings and allowing none runs. Only one was earned, and the freshman gave up just six hits.
Dwain Sowers also got some work on the mound, but by that time the game was long lost. Sowers walked the first batter he faced, gave up a hit, then hit a batter and the parade continued.
Offensively the Rockets were hot at the top of the order. The top four players in the order had two hits apiece, Kristopher Peters, Kyle Crawford, Sowers, and Johnny Crawford. Sowers scorched a double into the wind and Johnny Crawford had four stolen bases in the game. Chris Blankenship has the other hit.
On Friday at Shawsville the Rockets played better, but lost none the less, 7-4. Ben Boardwine went the distance fanning six and walking only two, but has a tough time with slugging Ben Basham of Shawsville. The Shawnee’s best player had a single, double, triple, and three runs batted in.
“We let him beat us,” said Baetz. “I’ll take some of the blame for that. We should have walked him instead of letting him swing the bat.”
The top of the Rocker order was hot again. Peters, Sowers, and Johnny Crawford had two hits each and Robby Huffman had one as Craig connected for seven hits.
The fifth inning proved to be the downfall for Craig this time, as Shawsville scored three runs with two outs. The defense was better, however.
“We played much better than we did against Narrows,” said Baetz.
The Rockets got some bad news this week when James Fisher, a freshman, went on the shelf with a bad back. How long he’ll be out isn’t known, but he’ll miss at least a couple turns in the rotation.
“That’s a bad break, because we have high hopes for James,” said Baetz. “He was throwing well in Florida and I was counting on him to be one of our starters.”
Boardwine will get the nod when the Rockets travel to Bath County Friday for the pioneer District opener. A Tuesday game at Covington was rained out.
Next week Craig has its home opener Thursday, April 7, and a second straight home game against Shawsville April 8.
-Prepared by Shelly Koon
