The baseball portion of this year’s Subway Commonwealth Games of Virginia was billed as an all-star event, and two Jamestown High standouts fared well.
The games, which were played Friday through Sunday at Salem Kiwanis Field in Salem, grouped the top 15- to 17-year-old players in the state into four different teams based on their respective regions: East, Central, West and North.
Veteran York High coach Rusty Ingram, who has coached the East squad for roughly 20 years, said there were an abundance of scouts, both college and professional, in attendance.
“It’s a great opportunity for kids who want to play at the next level to get their names out there,” Ingram said.
Several local players did just that in helping the East Squad capture the silver medal and finish the weekend 2-2.
On Friday, Jamestown standouts Sean Hughes and Evan Lowery starred in the East’s 7-0 victory over the Central Region team.
Hughes was virtually unhittable on the mound, yielding two hits while tallying 11 strikeouts over six shutout innings. Lowery finished a perfect 3-3 at the plate with a triple and three RBI.
Ingram said Lowery, who led off the second inning of Saturday’s 16-1 blowout victory over the West with a homerun, hit the ball hard all weekend and “probably” led the team in RBI.
Catcher Jordan Sprouse, a rising senior at Grafton High, had a strong weekend on both sides of the plate. He caught three of the East’s four games and allowed no passed balls and threw out one would-be base stealer to end an inning. He also finished the weekend 6-10 at the plate with a double, one RBI and two walks.
Ingram added that two of his players at York High, Eric Harp and Trey Kurtyka, also played well. He said Harp threw the ball well Saturday while Kurtyka saw time at third base and as the team’s designated hitter.
After splitting a Saturday double-header against the West and North, the East carried a 2-1 record into Sunday’s medal round before losing 4-1 to the North squad, which won gold for the fifth consecutive year.
