Dateline: Smith Field (formerly Fox Mill 1)
On a brutally long evening, the 9-10 Reston Nationals started off their Summer 2008 campaign against the defending district champion Vienna National. The start of the game was delayed as Reston American battled Vienna Colonial in the first game of the evening. Finally, Reston National took the field. Conor threw heat in the top of the first but two runs scored. He settled down and struck out the last batter. In the bottom of the first Conor drilled a single to left. Marti singled to right and the Nationals fans cheered. A wild pitch put runners on third and second with no outs. A couple of infield outs later and Sam came up and blasted a hard shot than the six foot first baseman leaped and snagged for out three. After one it was Vienna National 2 Reston National 0.
The Vienna team scored two more runs in the second but again Conor settled down and picked up a strikeout followed by a groundout to second. Reston bats were quiet in the bottom of the inning, and after two it was 4-0 Vienna National.
In the top of the third, the first batter walked. The next batter hit a long fly to center, but Graham camped under for an easy out. With one out the next batter drilled a shot to short. Marti caught it and fired to first for the double play. Three up and three down. In the bottom of the third, Reston National put three balls in play, but some nice defense resulted in no runs. After three it was Vienna National 4 Reston National 0.
Unfortunately, this reporter doesn’t remember too much of the fourth or fifth. Six runs scored in the fourth and four scored in the fifth. Reston did bring a run across in the fourth on a walk to Graham, a walk to Johnny and a walk to Brendan. A wild pitch scored Graham. The game ended after five innings with Vienna National ahead 14-1.
Coach Grossman was available only briefly after the game, he said, “Well, you hate to start off the tournament with a loss like this, but we should note that our guys battled a very tough Vienna National team for three solid innings. Who knows what would have happened if we had scored a couple in the first. I like how our team played together and it wouldn’t surprise me to see us surprise another team from Vienna down the road.”
