Braves win in dramatic fashion

August 02, 1998|By JACK HILL III

The Hagerstown Braves were looking for the perfect climax to their comeback.

Rodney Young provided it by delivering an RBI double to right-center field in the bottom of the eighth inning Saturday to give the Braves a 7-6 victory over the Fayetteville AA's in the first game of the best-of-seven Blue Ridge Adult League baseball championship series.

The second game of the series will be played this afternoon at 2 at Municipal Stadium.

Mark Shives set up Young's heroics with a two-out single to center.

"The ball was up in the strike zone and that is pretty much where I like it," Young said. "I just sat on it and I stroked it. Earlier, it didn't seem like we were in the ballgame. We usually score the majority of our runs during the late innings of the ballgame. We have got a lot of college ballplayers on the team that have the desire to win. We can usually get the clutch hits when we need them."

Fayetteville led 6-1 after 5 1/2 innings before the Braves came roaring back. They put together six straight hits with one out in the bottom of the sixth to help them tie the score.

Mickey Kerns, Pat Sweeney, Ronnie Palmer and Danny Summers had consecutive singles before player-manager Danny Cunningham got the big hit of the inning, a two-run double to right. Cunningham scored the tying run on a single to center by Shives.

Braves pitcher Nate Reeser recovered from a shaky start to get the complete-game win. Reeser fanned eight batters.

Young finished with two hits and two RBIs. Palmer, Summers and Shives added two hits apiece.

"A lot of the guys have been around for five years and they know that they are capable of coming back," Cunningham said. "We have also got some new guys that blend in well."

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