Comets win big, lose worse

By Denver Brown, Managing Editor

May 2, 2007 May 02, 2007 04:44 pm

— OLIVE HILL - West Carter rallied the bats in a big-stick win over Augusta over the weekend, but the Comet offense was completely extinguished in a lopsided loss to Bath County on Monday. The tilt with the Wildcats was the first home outing this season for the locals; wet weather made the improved Comet baseball field too mucked up for action.
“Against Augusta it was nice to see us hit the ball and play defense, too,” West Carter coach Stan McGlone told The Journal-Times of his club’s fourth victory of the season. “Hopefully we will turn the corner and continue to play to our potential – the key for us is to get healthy and get our key players back in the lineup. We really miss Ace Puckett’s bat and glove.”

In the 19-zip romp at Augusta, West (4-10) cracked 13 team hits and five players finished with multi-hit performances. Corey Oney belted a pair from the plate for 2RBI and scored three times to lead the Comet offense. Brad Vanlandingham, Stephen Carroll, Drew Oney and Zeb Brown also had two hits apiece. Tyler Stevens, David Valdepena and Ryan Huston each sent one hit through.

Corey Oney picked up the win from the mound, allowing just one hit, striking out seven and walking three in three innings of work. Drew Oney pitched two innings of relief yielding no Augusta hits, striking out a pair and allowing three walks in the five-inning win.
West brought six to the plate in the top of the first then piled up 10 more in the second. The Comets added three more in the top-half of the fifth to give the game its final.

As good as things were on the diamond against Augusta, an upside-down effort at home against Bath County proved the other extreme. West got throttled, 21-1, in a mismatch where the ‘Cats did most of their damage on West Carter mistakes and miscues.
“This was a dismal effort and we just didn’t come to play,” Coach McGlone said. “You’re not going to beat anyone when you commit nine errors.”
Five of those boots, bobbles and bloops came in the opening two innings where Bath County came up with 10 runs. The Wildcats, members of the 61st District, scored in each of the five innings and improved to 11-6 on the season.

“We are playing several seventh and eighth-graders and they are doing a great job,” the Comet bench boss said. “But it’s the upperclassmen that I’m disappointed with – we have three weeks to fix our defense and get smarter at the plate.”

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