Luray Punches Ticket

Luray 8, Winchester 2

Second-seeded Luray makes it 5 for 5 for higher seeded teams in the 2010 VBL playoffs by dispatching third-seeded Winchester 8-2 in Monday’s game three semi-final.

Winchester took the early lead with an RBI single from Raymond Church in the first inning, and made it 2-0 by combining a pair of hits in the fifth, but the Wranglers had an answer.

Luray, which hit four home runs on the evening, hit back-to-back shots in the bottom of the fifth to provide all of the offense it would need to clinch the series.

Eric Phillips hit the first, a two-run shot, to tie it, before Jonathan Murphy’s solo dinger put the Wranglers up to stay.

Three more runs in the sixth, two coming on a Jonathan Griffin home run, make it 6-2 in favor of the hosts before Nick Rickles closed the book on the scoring with a two-run HR in the seventh.

Tucker Jensen allowed two runs on seven hits in 7.0 innings. He struck out eight.

Matt Faiman had three hits for the Royals.

Front Royal 6, Haymarket 5 (11 innings)

No. 4 Front Royal forces a game three with a 6-5, 11 inning home victory over Haymarket.

The two teams will decide who will face Luray in the championship series with a 7:30 Tuesday contest at Haymarket.

The Cards won the game in the 11th when designated hitter Greg Van Sickler led off with a single.

After Hal Landers came into run for Van Sickler, Landers was sacrificed to second and moved to third on a wild pitch.

Sean Jamieson then came through, ripping a two-out single back through the middle to score Landers with the game-winning run.

Jamieson was one of four Front Royal players with two hits each. He, along with Andy Drexel and Drew Gadaire, drove in two runs each.

Jimmy Dowdell was 4 for 5 and Brant Jones drove in two for the Senators.