by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
Under coaches Welby Saunders and Scotty George, the Red Devils have made five Class 1 baseball tournament semifinal appearances, eight quarterfinal appearances and finished twice as the state runner-up. That state crown eluded them once more last weekend when Lancaster capped another successful season as a Class 1 semifinalist.
“We didn’t have a lot of expectations going into the season because we’d lost five or six impact players and we knew our numbers were down. We had to make some changes in some key positions,” said coach Scotty George. “But the kids were working hard and about halfway through the season we realized they were a really coachable team and things started to come together like they did last year. We started thinking we could (get back to the state tournament).”
After finishing as the Region 1A runner-up to eventual state champion Rappahannock High School, the Devils went on to beat Region C’s Rappahannock County, 4-2, in a state quarterfinal before meeting Chilhowie for a 14-4 loss in the semifinal.
“Rappahannock (County) was a best-case scenario,” said George. “They had a really solid team. But just how we’d won most games this year, Creston (Saunders) played an excellent game for us. Our defense was good and Josh (Woolard) was on the hill and pitched outstanding.”
Woolard was Lancaster’s anchor on the mound this year, with only two losses….
