Greham Pulls Out A Cat In The Hat

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  Graham, still reeling from their doubleheader loss to Bartlett Yancey on Wednesday, appeared to be going nowhere fast tonight against the visiting Rams of Reidsville. 

  Despite jumping out to a 2-0 lead, The Red Devils (11-9, 8-2) allowed the Rams to take a 5-2 lead after six innings of play.  All five runs were unearned, thanks to five uncharateristic errors by the Red Devil's defense. 

  Graham looked to be heading to their third straight conference loss of the week.  Until a stray cat appeared down the left field fence on the field during the Red Devil's at-bat in the sixth inning.   Graham's coach Chad Holland chased the cat to the gate at the outfield fence, and allowed the cat to run off.  It appeared that he allowed Graham's troubles to run off also, as the Red Devils overcame that 5-2 deficit and run away with a hard-fought 6-5 win in 8 innings.

  Treston Earley drove in Justin Luck, and then Josh Beam drove in Matt Holley in the sixth inning to cut the lead to one.

  Earley again had the big hit in the seventh inning, driving in Logan Andrews to tie the game, while Justin Luck tried to catch the Rams off guard, attempting to score from second on that at-bat but was gunned down at the plate to send the game into extra innings.

  Earley, pitching in relief of Dillon Brown, pitched the final three and 2/3 innings, allowing just two hits, striking out five, and walking one.  He enticed the Ram's bottom three batters into a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth.

  Dominique Snipes led off the bottom of the eighth with a solid single and advanced to second base on an error by Rams pitcher Justin Smith.  Josh Beam struck out trying to sacrifice Snipes to third.  The Reidsville coach inexplicitably opted to intentionally walk Dillon Brown. That move came to backfire on him, as Logan Andrews, who had already stroked two hits earlier in the game, floated a lob over first base and in front of a diving Caleb Williams charging in from right field.  Williams had no chance at it, while Snipes raced home for the win.

  Andrews finished with 3-for-5 batting with one RBI.  Treston Earley was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI, while Dillon Brown was 2-for-4.

  Earley picked up the win in relief, while Justin Smith, the Ram's third pitcher, was stuck with the loss. 

  Graham will host Rockingham County Monday night in a non-conference game.