COVINGTON, Va., June 6, 2015 – The Harrisonburg Turks started the 2015 Valley Baseball League season off in style with an 11-0 victory over the Covington Lumberjacks at Casey Field on Friday night thanks to an eight-run explosion in the first four innings and five hitless innings from Matt Young.
Young (1-0) finished the night with a line of 0 hits, 3 walks and 7 strikeouts over five innings in a dominant performance. Patrick Wiseman, Matt Hartman, Jarod Datoc and James Ziemba each threw a scoreless inning in relief, holding the Lumberjacks to four hits in the contest. No Covington runner advanced past second base.
Joe Lytle, Jared Baker and Kameron Esthay led the offense with two runs batted in each on a night in which eight of the 10 Turks to record an at bat reached base. Tripp Shelton alone reached base five times going 2 for 3 as a result of a throwing error and two walks.
Carrera, Hudson, Pangallo and Dadona recorded a hit apiece, accounting for all four hits by Convington in a game that offense did not come easily for the Lumberjacks. Ameil Abreu allowed eight runs, six of which were earned, on seven hits over four innings including three walks and a strikeout in the losing effort.
Shane Billings drew a leadoff walk to start the game, which Lytle quickly followed with a double down the left field line. Esthay then pushed across the first run of the game and season with a RBI groundout to first. J.J. Bissell continued the scoring with a sacrifice fly that scored Lytle followed by an Aaron Dodson solo shot to center field to make it 3-0 Turks. The first inning would finally come to a close but not before Wade Bailey would hit a double to right field and score on a Covington throwing error to make it 4-0.
Kameron Esthay extended the Turks’ lead in the third by reaching base on a fielding error, stealing second, stealing third and racing home after an errant throw past the third baseman and down the left field line.
The scoring would continue in the fourth inning when the Turks loaded the bases with no outs and Lytle at the plate. A 2-0 pitch from Abreu would be roped to left center by Lytle scoring two, making it 7-0 in favor of the Turks. Billings would score on a sacrifice fly two batters later to end the inning at 8-0.
As a pitching staff, the Turks had a no-hitter going for 6.2 innings before the Lumberjacks would finally break up the no-no with a double to left field.
Finally, to further secure the Turks first win of the season, Morgan Bunting hit a double to left field to score two and a sac fly from Baker made it 11-0 in the ninth.
Harrisonburg will look to continue their strong start to the season Saturday night when they travel to New Market to take on the Rebels at 7:30 p.m. Be sure to follow our Twitter account, @HbgTurksVBL, for in-game updates all season long.