Altemus walks 1, beats Bandits

Waynesboro took advantage of some Woodstock sloppiness to win a 5-3 game in front of a crowd of 295 at Fishburne Military School Park at Kate Collins Field on Tuesday night.

A few lucky bounces helped the Generals take the lead in the third inning.

Alex McClure and Cory Kovanda reached on consecutive errors.

After a Tony Caldwell walk, Waynesboro had the bases loaded without the benefit of a hit.

A Rob Kral sacrifice fly plated McClure, adding to his league-leading run total.

Ryan Mathews followed up Kral with a single to score Kovanda.

Andy Altemus dominated on the mound from the opening pitch, reminiscent of the Altemus from 2008, mowing through River Bandits.

“We had a long talk with the pitchers after last night about not walking people,” said Waynesboro coach Andy Chalot. “We rank near the top of the league in walks and hit batters and I told them that if we give up nine hits like tonight and don’t walk people we can win. Andy was around the zone tonight and only walked one.”

Jose Rodriguez got to Woodstock starter Johnathan McElroy in the fourth with a leadoff double.

After being sacrificed to third by Mark Dvoroznak, McClure

singled back up the middle to score Rodriguez and give Altemus and the Generals a much needed insurance run early.

The defense really picked up Altemus as the game grew on into the night.

With Johnathan Koscso on first after a single, Mike Garza hit a hard groundball to short.

McClure ran into the hole to get the ball, throwing across his body to Kovanda to get the first out at second.

Kovanda made the throw to first with Koscso bearing down on him to get Garza out at first for a smoothly turned double play.

The double play turned out to be a huge play in the game when Stephen Hunt doubled, but no one was on base to score.

Woodstock got on the board against Altemus in the seventh when Shawn Ablett and Matt Blow hit back-to-back singles.

After a sacrifice bunt, Michael Benton’s grounder to second scored Ablett.

An error on McClure allowed Blow to score, cutting the General lead in half.

After several other helpful gifts from Woodstock, loading the bases off of one hit, Jose Rodriguez was hit by a pitch to extend the lead to three runs.

“They did help us out with us being able to load the bases and not get hits, but we need to score three or four runs an inning instead of one or two,” Chalot added.

The River Bandits rallied in the ninth off of closer Chris Enourato, trying to pick up his league-leading seventh save of the season.

With one out, three straight singles scored a run to make it 5-3.

The ninth hitter in the order, Derek Vigoa grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to end it.