Sometimes, an epic, leaping high-five just says it all.

As Battlefield closer John Williams ran off the pitching mound, he turned toward the dirt path connecting first and second base. Up ran Derrick Evans, the Bobcats' second baseman, there to great him with solid smack to the right hander's pitching hand.

He had earned it, after all.

They had earned.

Williams struck out all three Liberty batters in the top of the seventh inning last Friday night in Haymarket with a series of curveballs and fastballs to preserve a 4-0 win for Battlefield (4-0 overall) during the Bobcats' home opener.

The senior closer fanned four batters total in his two innings on the mound in relief of Nathaniel Abdel, who made his first start of the season.

Abel scattered scattered six hits in five innings pitched in picking up the win while striking out six. Williams, who earned the save, followed up with back-to-back 1-2-3 innings.

"My curve ball was working tonight," said Williams. "Like, I set (batters) up, go inside with the fastball to get them to back up a little bit and then snap it off with a curveball to get them to freeze up a little bit. And it was just on fire."

Battlefield needed the strong pitching performances from both pitchers simply because the Group AA Eagles proved to be tough company in their own right.

"You know, we just got to get a little bit mentally tougher at the plate ourself when we've got runners in scoring position," said Liberty manager Jeff Crane. "We had two opportunities to really lay a bunt down and get a runner in scoring position and we didn't bunt the ball and (Battlefield) bunted the ball a little better tonight than we did."

The Bobcats clung to a 1-0 lead after 5.5 innings as sophomore Andrew Summers and senior Zach Morgan spread out Battlefield's hits while relying on sophomore catcher C.J. Lindsay to act as a reliable backstop.

"We knew that if you put one in the dirt, you know, C.J.; most likely he's going to stop it," said Summers. "He's not going to let it get by."

However, the BHS hitting brigade finally showed up in earnest in the bottom of the sixth inning when the junior Evans smacked a 1-1 pitch to right field to score J.T. Belotti standing up after running in from second base.

"I always have the mentality to go centerfield but it's just, the same approach every at-bat," said Evans. "I just saw fastball and hit it."

Evans moved up to second on a dribbled grounder to third base for a throw out and darted to third base after a hit by Zach Harris.ended up lost in the lights and fell into right field.

With runners in scoring position, Abel hit a grounder back to Morgan to score Evans and bring Harris up to third, who then came home on an RBI single to centerfield by Williams.

Battlefield manager Jay Burkhart said the Bobcats started making quality contact after about three or four times through the line up and that putting baserunners in motion on hit-and-runs and for stealing bases brought momentum to the offense.

"You've got to try to create and make stuff happen," he said. "We it came down to it, these guys kept working hard and made something happen."

According to Summers, his curveball broke well in the early innings of the games and he hit the outside corner often, which kept Battlefield off the scoreboard. By the time the sixth inning came around, Morgan explained that started connecting with curveballs, put the ball in play and capitalized on Liberty miscues.

"We hung in there with them," he said.

In fact, Battlefield out-hit Liberty (2-1) by only an 8-2 margin, causing Summers to declare that the game was "one of the best hitting games we've had so far' in the early part of the summer.

"We're going to take a lot of positive stuff out of this game," said Crane, the Liberty manager. "Like I said, we had a few mental errors with our signs tonight and just a couple other little hiccups and I think that playing this team tonight will certainly make us a better team later on."