6/10/2006 – Daily News Record

Bats come alive to support Wood in 11-5 victory over Woodstock Daily News Record By MATTHEW STOSS Special Correspondent After the opening the Valley League season 0-6, the Harrisonburg Turks finally put one in the win column thanks to the left arm of Justin Wood and some consistent offense. The former Turner Ashby High School standout and rising sophomore at James Madison went seven innings allowing no earned runs to help lead the Turks to an 11-5 win over the Woodstock River Bandits at Memorial Stadium. "I had a lot of people to pitch for," Wood said of pitching so close to home. "It was a lot of fun. "I was changing speeds and getting the change-up and curveball over for strikes." In Wood’s first start, he went six innings, giving up two earned runs, but got stuck with the hard-luck loss due to a lack of offense and too many errors. Friday, he turned in another quality start, but this time, got some help from the bats. The Turks (1-6) scored in all but three innings, including three runs in the first and four runs in the fifth to put the River Bandits away. "He’s a local boy," Harrisonburg manager Bob Wease said. "It’s his second time out and the first time out, he gave up one earned run. Tonight, he gave up no earned runs. That’s 13 innings and one run, and that’s pretty good." Wood struck out three, while scattering five hits, hitting his spots and utilizing his breaking pitches. "He kept us off-balance," Woodstock manager Aaron Carroll said. "He made a few mistakes, but very few. I saw him at TA and had an idea of what he had then. He’s going to be a hell of a college pitcher." Woodstock (2-5) struck first, scoring a run on an error to take a 1-0 lead. In the bottom half of the inning, Harrisonburg answered, scoring three runs on a single and two bases-loaded walks while sending nine men to plate. "It was intensity," Turks catcher Matt Denker said. Denker was intense himself. He got the Turks on the board in the first with the RBI single and put the exclamation point on the win in the eighth with a RBI double to the gap that put Harrisonburg up 10-5. The rising junior from Arizona finished the night 3-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. In all, the Turks had four players with multiple hits. "We were a lot more aggressive tonight and the balls just fell into the right places," Denker said. Woodstock 101 002 010 – 5 7 3 Harrisonburg 301 140 02x – 11 14 3 Schenk, Breymier (3), Dudley (5), Supplee (7) and Brannon; Wood, Johnson (8) and Denker. W – Wood; L—Schenk.