DISPUTANTA—All season long Coach Paul Rogers has preached his recipe for success on the baseball field — pitching and defense. Plain and simple, if your pitching and defense can keep the other team from reaching the base paths, you win ballgames.

Thursday night in Prince George would prove to be a challenge for the Wakefield/Waverly team, as they committed eight fielding errors and six Wakefield pitchers combined for eight walks and a hit batter. In the end, however, defense won the game.

Wakefield went up 3-0 in the second inning, only to see Hopewell tie the game on a Jerimiah Rivera 3-run homerun to center field in the top of the third inning. Wakefield loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the third inning, but the team was unable to plate a run.

In the top of the fourth, Wakefield starting pitcher Justin Spiers was get chased from the mound after allowing the first two batters to reach base, giving way to Andrew Burkhouse. Burkhouse got the next batter to pop up to the shortstop. The following batter reached base by way of error allowing 1 run to score, and Jaron Burgess then delivered an RBI single to give Hopewell a 2-run lead. Burkhouse hit Hopewell’s leadoff batter, Cam Hill, loading the bases with only one out, giving way to Payton Holdsworth. Holdsworth ended the rally, striking the following two batters out, the last being Rivera who was overmatched by a fastball.

Wakefield scored three runs in the bottom of the fourth retaking the lead 6-5. Holdsworth, still limited on his pitch count due to elbow surgery, threw 23 total pitches, striking out all batters he faced. His second strikeout victim of the fifth inning reached base by way of a dropped third strike and an error by the first baseman. He then recorded his fifth strikeout, and gave way to Wakefield’s fourth pitcher Hunter Buhls. Buhls induced a fly out to the leftfielder, ending the inning.

Wakefield then scored 5 runs in their half-inning, highlighted by a Buhls grand slam homer to left centerfield. Wakefield would lead at that point 11-5, but Hopewell wasn’t about to give up. They went into their half-inning and scored 4 runs by way of 3 Wakefield errors, 4 bases on balls and 1 hit, giving way to the 6th pitcher of the night for Wakefield, Jerimiah Berryman. At this point, Wakefield lead was cut to 11-9.

But the scoring wouldn’t stop there, as Wakefield plated four runs in the bottom of the 6th inning, building a 15-9 lead.

Berryman issued walks to the first 2 Hopewell batters to bring up Hopewell’s leadoff hitter, who would then hit a bouncer to Buhls at third base. Buhls tagged the bag for the first out. With runners at first and second and 1 out, Coach Rogers positioned Buhls closer to the third base line for Hopewell’s No. 2 hitter, Ricky Jones, who had been hitting down the third base line all game. Jones hit a sharp line drive to Buhls who threw to Holdsworth covering second base for the game ending double play.

For the night, Buhls had 4 RBIs, Holdsworth and Spiers added 3 a piece, and Brandon Raiford contributed 2. Payton Holdsworth earned the pitching win. This marks the 5th consecutive title for the Wakefield/Waverly ball club and 6 out of the last 7.