GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Somewhere up in heaven, Claire McCool was probably smiling and cheering on her beloved Blue Devils Friday night.
McCool, 62, tragically passed away Nov 20, 2017 after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. The veteran teacher taught at Clay for over 20 years and was a staple at various Blue Devil athletic events.
Friday night her community and her school honored her with the Inaugural Mrs. McCool baseball night and then honored her the best way they knew how, with a Clay win as the Blue Devils knocked off Ridgeview 6-1 for the second straight night.
With players wearing pink jerseys and fans, students and administration donning pink t-shirts that were sold at the school, the community and the school honored McCool’s legacy and memory. A scholarship was set up in her name at the school as well and her oldest daughter threw out the first pitch.
One of the many Clay fans donning the pink shirt honoring Mrs McCool on the night. pic.twitter.com/24JfvDNonp
— Corey Davis (@ByCoreyDavis) April 14, 2018
Of course the bats and the defense sent home the partial Blue Devil crowd home happy as well as the Devils swept the two game series with Ridgeview winning 6-1 back-to-back days.
Clay chased starter Marcus Roman out of the game quickly as Roman lasted only 1 and 1/3 before being replaced by shortstop Brandon Dumas.
An error and consecutive singles by Andy Yarbrough and Zach Morris allowed Chase Holman to score the first run of the game. The Devils weren’t done though as Kevin Jackson singled to load the bases with one out and Nick Barrie 2 RBI single to left scored both Yarbrough and Morris and Tyler Spence RBI single to right scored Jackson for a quick 4-0 lead.
That was all the run support starter senior Connor Solomon would need as Solomon struck out eleven and allowed just three hits to get the win and keep the potent and red hot Ridgeview bats off the bases.
Jackson led the Devils offensively going 3 for 4, while Josh Lemen was 2 for 4 and Yarbrough was 2 for 3 part of the Blue Devils 11 hit attack.
Solomon allowed a single from lead off batter Evan Wickeri to start the third, Wickeri stole third and scored on a grounder to second from Dumas to cut the lead to 4-1 heading to the bottom of the inning.
His teammates answered the Panthers run with two more runs in the bottom of the inning to essentially put the game away as Yarbrough singled to left and Dylan Faulkner drew a two out walk. An errant throw by third baseman Richie Long to first, which would have got the Panthers out of the inning, ended up costing them two more runs as Yarbrough and Faulkner both scored for a 6-1 lead.
Jackson singled to left to load the bases before the errant throw and was left stranded at third after Dumas induced a pop up to short to get out of the inning with only the two runs.
Solomon retired five in a row before giving up a single and an error at shortstop to put runners on first and second, before getting out of the jam by striking out the side in the fifth. He finished the game retiring the final nine batters to get the win and more importantly his team the crucial district win.
“Early on it was my fastball working for me but by the third or fourth inning it was my curve,” Solomon said. “I always play well again Ridgeview, I have to give a lot of credit to my pitching coach also.”
Of course it’s a lot easier to get into a groove and dominate with a lot of run support, a pitchers best friend.
“Getting those insurance runs it felt really good, our whole team has been working together for this,” Solomon added.
His coach Josh Persinger echoed those statements as well and also told his team as proud as he was by winning this series it won’t mean as much if they don’t take care of business next week with Ponte Vedra.
“Conner and Dylan (Faulkner) have been our 1-2 guys all season long on the mound, I believe our team ERA is sub 2.00,” Persinger stated. “He stepped up huge for us tonight like he has all season long.”
Yet despite his teams performance he knows an even more critical series looms next week.
“This was a big game for us with (Ridgeview coach) John (Sgromolo) having played here and John and I started coaching the same time, this was a huge district series, ” Persinger stated. “I just told my team exactly the same thing you just said if we don’t play well against Ponte Vedra this won’t mean anything, we still have to win 1 of 2 from Ponte Vedra.”
With Ridgeview (13-6, 6-2) done with its district games all they can do is finish their regular season schedule and pull for Ponte Vedra next week. One win over Ponte Vedra (11-9, 4-2) would give Clay (15-5, 6-0) the top seed in the district; however if Ponte Vedra can pull of the sweep in the two game series April 19-20, the district would finish in a three-way tie for the third straight year.
To which Persinger was quick to say, “Ponte Vedra has 3 D-I pitchers, this thing is far from over.”
