CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Though just a game into the season, Walker Valley’s players entered Tuesday’s District 5-AAA baseball rematch with thoughts of must-win bouncing between their ears.
They got run-ruled in six innings in the season opener Monday at Ooltewah. The Mustangs knew with the expanded membership and unforgiving guidelines for seeding the district’s postseason tournament that they could ill afford to fall two games behind the Owls.
“The kids were embarrassed last night. We didn’t play Walker Valley baseball,” Mustangs coach Joe Shamblin said. “And I reminded them that Walker Valley had only been run-ruled four or five times in the program’s history. They responded.”
Behind the combined four-hit pitching of Houston Spencer and Cody Burrell, Walker Valley answered Ooltewah’s 13-2 Monday win with a 7-0 shutout.
“Houston pitched all right,” Shamblin said, then broke into a wide grin. “Actually he pitched a gem. He’d pitched some games before but none in this type setting with so much on the line.”
Though topping the 100-pitch count, Spencer struck out 10 while walking three in his six innings of work. He talked coaches into letting him pitch the sixth and was going to try to get them to leave him in for the seventh, but an alternate decision was made while he was batting in the bottom of the sixth.
“I really wanted to finish. I felt good,” Spencer said.
The Owls’ four hits were a fourth of their Monday total. They struck out 12 times, seven on third-strike callouts. And only two of the Mustangs’ runs were earned.
“You can tell them but you can’t go play for them,” Ooltewah coach Brian Hitchcox said. “That whole entire game, every at-bat we wasted was mental breakdowns, and we left a small village on the bases.”
Ooltewah had bases-loaded situations in the first and sixth innings. In the first, Spencer induced a soft, inning-ending liner to second. In the sixth, he cut loose and got a called third strike for the third out.
“I knew if they hit the ball I had good defense behind me,” Spencer said. “We have had some young guys come in and fill some big spots, but I was comfortable.”
The Owls stranded eight runners.
Walker Valley loaded the bases in its first opportunity and Connor Hamilton provided the Mustangs’ first two runs with a double — the game’s only extra-base hit. The Mustangs then got two more on a two-out, two-strike throwing error.
“When they scored the four in the first, I think we thought we were out of it,” Hitchcox said.
Walker Valley was still pressing the issue by stealing bases in the later innings. It was out of respect, a point Shamblin made to Hitchcox in the coaches’ postgame chat.
“The reason they were still stealing bases was because they thought we were still in it. I’m not sure we did,” Hitchcox said.