RIPPLE/Matthew Gorry
Forbush’s Caleb Brawley takes a cut Wednesday night against the Rams.
RIPPLE/Matthew Gorry
Starmount’s Dillon Bray throws a pitch against the Falcons Wednesday night in Boonville.
RIPPLE/Matthew Gorry
Forbush’s Josh Faircloth picked up the win after holding Starmount to one hit Wednesday night.
BOONVILLE - Forbush jumped all over Starmount en route to a convincing 13-1 victory Wednesday night.
Falcon senior Josh Faircloth silenced the Rams’ bats, pitching a complete-game gem to pick up the win, allowing just one recorded hit and striking out four.
“Josh has thrown well for us all year,” Forbush head coach Taylor Rutledge said. “When he’s focused and bearing down and challenging hitters, he’s pretty good, especially when he’s keep it down in the zone.”
Starmount senior Dillon Bray was handed the loss after struggling with control issues throughout the game. The Western Carolina-bound lefty was chased after four-plus innings of work with Forbush ahead 8-0.
Bray dominated to open the game, striking out the side in the first, but could not maintain his command.
In the second, the senior walked the first two batters he faced before loading the bases after plunking Austin Livengood with nobody out.
Grayson Fulp followed with a two-RBI double to right to give Forbush an early 2-0 advantage.
From there, the Falcons piled on the runs.
After plating five runs in the third, Forbush tacked on another in the fourth for the commanding 8-0 lead.
The Falcons added five more in the sixth for good measure to take a somewhat surprising 13-0 advantage.
“We expect to score runs,” Rutledge explained. “We tried to hit the ball the other way. We know teams are going to try and jam us but I feel like we’re quick enough to get around when they pitch us inside.
“You have to get the home run out of your mind - you can’t play gorilla ball this year [with the new bats],” he continued. “You’re going to have to hit the ball and be smart on the bases. It puts more pressure on your defense and a higher premium on strikes being thrown because you can’t give away free passes.”
Starmount finally broke through and plated a run in the bottom of the sixth on a Bray sacrifice fly, but it was too late with the game well in hand, leading to the obvious displeasure on the face of head coach Mike McCann.
“We just stunk it up,” he said. “We didn’t throw strikes - we walked eight batters and hit three batters. And we made three errors in the field. We didn’t pitch it and we didn’t hit it and that’s the summary of the ballgame right there.”
The win was the fifth-straight for the Falcons, who improved to 5-0 in Mountain Valley Conference play and 7-2 overall. Forbush has plated double-figure runs in each contest.
“When you’re hot, you want to make sure your kids are on the field,” Rutledge said. “We have to keep pace and that makes every game important.”
Starmount dropped to 3-3 on the season and 3-2 in the conference and will look to move forward.
“We have to put this one behind us; we can’t dwell on it,” McCann said. “If we don’t play any better than this, we can’t beat anybody in the conference - we’re going to have to pick it up.
Reach Matthew Gorry at 835-1513 or mgorry@heartlandpublications.com.
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