King George pitcher Dre Turner has had a lock on the Dinwiddie baseball team for the past two seasons. The tall junior shut down the Generals last year and again this year with impressive performances.
For nearly seven innings in Tuesday’s 4A–East quarterfinal matchup at King George, he had them baffled again.
With Turner in command and the Foxes leading 1–0 with one out in the seventh, King George was on the verge of punching its ticket to a date with Jamestown in the region semifinals.
But winning means getting the final out, and the Foxes (15–5) simply couldn’t get the job done in the final agonizing minutes of a 5–1 loss that brought an abrupt end to their season.
After Turner got Cody Jewett on a flyout to left to start the top of the seventh, Dinwiddie made the most of five hits and a pair of King George errors to score five runs and seal a stunning comeback win.
So now, instead of the Foxes making travel plans for the Tidewater area, it will be the Conference 20 runner-up Generals (15–7) who will move on to Jamestown on Thursday with a chance to advance to the state playoffs next week.
“This one stings right now,” said Foxes coach Thad Reviello. “We had some chances to add to our lead, but we didn’t get it done today. But these kids have stuck together as a group and battled through some things.”
They nearly got it done again against the Generals and their promising sophomore pitcher, Seth Mayberry, but never could break through after taking a 1–0 lead on catcher Jacob Sivak’s RBI single in the bottom of the first.
Shane Reviello singled to left with one out in the inning and then advanced to third on a passed ball. Sivak then drove a fastball to center to bring him home and give King George the early lead.
For nearly seven innings, it looked like that one run would be all the Foxes would need to overcome a strong showing by Dinwiddie sophomore pitcher Seth Mayberry.
Mayberry struck on out nine and matched Turner with scoreless frames until the sixth, when he turned things over to fellow sophomore, Thomas Sanchez. Sanchez added four more strikeouts and shut the door on the Foxes in the final two innings.
“Seth pitched his behind off,” said Generals coach Jason Burton. “We didn’t give him much help early with a lot of quality at-bats. But luckily for us, we were able to string together some hits and take advantage at the end.”
Neither team had many scoring opportunities. In the top of the sixth, the Generals got a runner to second when Alex Brugos singled and Will Driskill walked. But Turner struck out Mayberry looking at a third strike to end the rally.
King George had an opportunity to score in the bottom of the frame after Sivak was hit by a pitch and Miles LeVere drilled a single to center. But Turner flied out and Chris LeVere struck out to halt the threat.
That set the stage for Dinwiddie’s final at-bat in the seventh, and the Generals made sure it was a productive one.
Brandon Webb and Matt Culbreath both singled, and then Sanchez hit a grounder to Miles LeVere. LeVere couldn’t make a play on the ball and Webb raced home with Dinwiddie’s first run. But the Generals weren’t done yet.
Zack Donovan hit a soft liner to right to load the bases, and then Brian Sheeder, Brugos and Driskill all drove in runs to make it 5–1. Sheeder’s hit was a slow-rolling bunt to first that the Foxes misplayed.
Sanchez was all business in the bottom of the seventh, striking out Luke Barnum, Austin Halter and Shane Reviello to end the game, as well as King George’s season.
“We usually score early, but we like to make it difficult on ourselves sometimes,” said Mayberry. “If we hadn’t waited until the end, this could have been a completely different story.”
Miles LeVere had two of the Foxes’ four hits in the contest. Culbreath had a pair of singles for the Generals, who stranded 10 base runners.
Despite the loss, King George added a Conference 19 tournament trophy to its collection this season and won 14 games for the third straight season under Reviello.
“Obviously, we wanted to win this game today,” said Reviello. “But losing doesn’t take anything away from this season. These kids accomplished a lot of good things as a group this year.”
| | | | | | | | | | | | | R | H | E |
| Dinwiddie | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | | | | — | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| King George | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | | — | 1 | 4 | 2 |
Seth Mayberry, THOMAS SANCHEZ (6) and Cody Jewett. DRE TURNER, Chris LeVere (7) and Jacob Sivak.
