STATE EXTRA: The final goodbye

PULASKI
Waynesboro gathered in left field, some staring into Calfee Park’s lawn, others looking past the mountain in right field and a handful watching their coaches make the final post-game speeches of the season.
The heat boiled the Little Giants’ mixed-emotions while on the other side of the diamond Powhatan was listening to coach Gregg Conner give his team an ’atta boy for ending Waynesboro’s season one game short of the Group AA finals.
Waynesboro coach Jim Critzer walked around the circle of spaced out teenagers that he had watched grow into a state championship contenders, shaking each of their hands.
After the team was dismissed to the dugout to gather game gear and empty Gatorade cups from the wood-planked floor, the seniors the team was built around stayed behind.
“We’ve played together for 10 years,” Waynesboro first baseman Josh Craig choked out.
Like their elder teammates the year before, the Little Giant seniors played their final game in the historic ballpark nestled in the mountains of Pulaski, hoping that the end of their 10-year tenure together hadn’t just ended.
“I love every single one of them,” Craig said. “It’s been amazing.”
Strong and proud teenage boys, a day away from walking across the graduation stage at Waynesboro High School, gripped each other in one final, tearful goodbye. The end of River City baseball resurgence had come for them.
“There isn’t one moment that sticks out,” said Jeremy Hahn. “Every inning and every game was memorable.”
Jeremy Hahn, Jordan Weatherholtz, Stevie Moreland, Eric Hall, Derek Hall, Jay Thompson, Will Freeman and Josh Craig stood in a circle around their coach as he told each player a personal valediction, before turning to tend to the rest of the team and leaving his leaders to talk.
“We just lifted each other up,” Thompson said.
One-by-one they slumped off to the bench to grab their own personal effects, receiving consolation congratulations from a hoard of Waynesboro fans that only added fuel to their burning emotions.
Two years, two trips to Calfee Park. Nothing to be ashamed of for a program that needed semblances of success a few short years ago, but their accomplishments have not sunk in, instead the pain of losing melded with any sense of pride.
“It feels great to come here twice,” Thompson said, “but it sucks getting stopped twice in this game. We couldn’t get past it.”
The season closed and the seniors handed the baton to their younger teammates, leaving an eight-man void to fill.