Friday, July 24, 2022
John Breeden
Harrisonburg, VA

For the first time this season, the Harrisonburg Turks were unable to bring a run across home plate as they lost 9-0 to the Staunton Braves Thursday night at Eagle Field. The loss moves them to 10-7 this season and 6-5 at home.

“It’s a tough one to swallow for sure,” pitcher Matthew Gainer said. “It happens. You can have games like that, you just got to suck it up and move on.”

The game was scoreless through the first four innings. The Turks notched two hits and Gainer threw three strikeouts.

The Braves were first to get on the board in the top of the fifth as Andrew Bennett (Samford) scored on a sacrifice bunt from John Seibert (Millersville U). Nicolas Rodriguez (Charleston Southern U) scored on a Turk’s fielding error.

“We never really found a groove,” third baseman Matt Mamatas said. “Usually we’ll have a big inning or something … we just couldn’t get anything started.”

The Braves added to their score in the top of the sixth as Rodriguez drove in Jeffrey Snider (Bridgewater) on an RBI single. Staunton followed that with two more RBI singles — one from Seibert and the other from Ryan Peterson (VMI). The Turks put Ryan Delisi (North Carolina A&T) on the mound.

Things only got worse for the Turks as Bryant Goolsby drove in an RBI double in the top of the eighth — putting the Braves up 6-0. Staunton scored three more runs in the top of the ninth and notched three quick outs in the bottom of the ninth to give Harrisonburg its first scoreless game of the season.

The Turks travel to Waynesboro to face the Generals Friday at 7 p.m. They travel to Purcellville to face the Cannons in a doubleheader Sunday at 5 p.m.

The loss is something Gainer said the team will need to shake off in order to move forward. “I think we got to look at that,” Gainer said. “We’re not going to be 100% focused every game. We gotta learn from that and move on.”