VALLEY LEAGUE: Turks invade Waynesboro, beat Generals

With abnormally low temperatures the day before America’s birthday and with their families watching, the Generals fell to the Harrisonburg Turks on Friday, 4-2.

The Turks wasted no time in getting on the board. Thomas Nichols and Bobby Brown scored back-to-back runs in the first. A left-field pop fly by Jack Posey brought in Nichols. Shaun Cooper’s sacrifice fly sent Brown home.

The Turks would maintain that lead the rest of the game.
“We’ve had to battle from behind several times this year,” said Waynesboro head coach Andy Chalot. “We just walked too many guys.”

The Generals’ Alex McClure, who scored the only two General runs, led off the first with a stand-up triple that rolled deep into the right-field corner, but wasn’t brought home until late in the inning. McClure scored off an error in the infield as Rob Kral stole second. The second baseman dropped the ball and Kral continued on to third, but was left stranded on base.

Nichols and Brown scored another pair of runs in the fifth inning. Nichols hit a single, made it to second on a wild pitch and stole third before an infield single that hit the mound and bounced over the pitcher brought him home. Brown scored off a line drive by Victor Croglio.

McClure, who went 3-for-5 on the night, led off the seventh with his second triple and scored on the very next pitch, which went wild and ended at the backstop. When the Generals attempted to continue their rally with Kral on base, but a double play ended it.

Four different General pitchers were brought in to try and find what was needed to keep the Turks from scoring anymore runs; it was a little too late. The pitchers did what they could – striking out 11 Turks — but got little help from the offense.

“I think we hit the ball pretty well,” said manager Andy Chalot. “But a couple of times we hit the ball right at people at key moments.”

Over the course of the night the Generals left seven players stranded.