Gainesville juniors take opening round 9-1

Just because a team has a bye in the first round of a tournament does not necessarily mean the players and coaches stop working.

Maybe everyone is just rewarded with a light day of film study or warm up repetition, but ideally, top-ranked teams get where they want to go by doing their homework.

The Gainesville District Little League junior league National all-stars took advantage of their No. 2 seed going into the Virginia District 10 tournament by watching the play-in game between Lower Loudoun and Coles, knowing fully well that they would be playing the winner.

Manager Rob Rubrecht picked up on a quick fact that became useful Monday evening when Gainesville defeated first-round victor Lower Loudoun 9-1 at Long Park in Haymarket: the LL coaches tended to play their outfield in instead of back, even in some power-hitting situations.

Gainesville catcher Joe Mang likewise drilled two RBI doubles to the fence during a 3-for-4 performance at the plate, putting him in position to also rack up four stolen bases and score one run for the home team.

Even though Mang ended up stranded at third once and thrown out after challenging the pitcher to make a play at the bag, his coach said that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"I'd rather have them making an aggressive mistake than one where they hesitate," said Rubrecht.

Mang's pro-active style of play translated well defensively too. In the first inning, he picked off a runner taking a generous lead at first base and followed up by darting down the first base basepath after a foul ball.

"Mine!" yelled Mang as he stuck up his mitt in front of him and slightly to the left to pluck the ball out of the air to end the top half of the inning.

The catcher ended the top of the second inning too by pegging out another leading runner at first base after a 1-2 pitch, causing Lower Loudoun to shorten its leads, according to Rubrecht.

Meanwhile, Mang's battery mate on the mound Joey Cloud allowed only one run in six innings of work before Jacob Christain successfully closed out the game in the seventh inning. Cloud's most important victory did not have to come via strike outs. Rather, his pitch count through the first two inning turned out to be a fraction of Lower Loudoun's: 16 to 61.

That meant he felt comfortable enough to put the ball over the place in locations where batters could hit it without worrying about how his defense would handle each situation. In fact, Lower Loudoun only forced him to throw more than two pitches to a batter once through their first six hitters, and that one went for a full-count strike out in the second inning.

Left fielder Matt Golder tracked down every fly ball hit his way for outs while centerfielder Evan Rubrecht and right fielder Nick Sybertz held their own too. Lower Loudoun's run came off of a lone defensive throwing error to first base in the top of the fifth. A stolen base and two fielder's choice hits that stayed in the field produced the score.

"...We work a lot on defense," said the manager Rubrecht, adding that he emphasizes to his boys that they should not "give up cheap bases" on walks and errors.

Small ball and aggressive base running contributed to most of Gainesville's offensive production. Leadoff hitter Evan Rubrecht opened the game up in the bottom of the first inning when he scored the first run on a wild pitch to teammate Nate Johnson. Cloud, Shane McSally and Collin Brown scored in similar fashion in the second inning before Mang's first double brought home Rubrecht again.

Mang tallied the sixth run of the game on another ball that hit the dirt and headed toward the back stop with Sybertz in the batter's box.

The score stood at 6-0 through four innings. Leading 6-1 in the bottom of the fifth, Gainesville's Austin Mitchell and McSally increased the difference by another two runs, leading to Mang driving in Rubrecht, who scored his third run of the game.

"That's going to pump up the whole bench," said Rubrecht's dad, the manager, of the final double.