nock lost the momentum and never regained it. The

nock lost the momentum and never regained it. The big turning point came in the top of the third inning when Page County went on a wild scoring spree. They scored seven runs on six hits but it seemed like a hundred runs on two hundred hits. As a charitable gesture, Rappahannock tossed in all of its five errors that inning. It had to be one of the bleakest moments in Rappahannock’s athletic history.

Page slugged six of its 10 hits in that inning, chalking up three ground rule doubles and three singles. When the shellacking was over, Rappahannock was a different team. Their confidence was gone.

With the score 7 - 1 in the bottom of the third, the home town Panthers needed to answer back quickly. But their bats were quiet that inning.

In the bottom of the fourth, Rappahannock tried to spark a comeback. Reggie Williams led off with a long fly that gave him an easy double. As luck would have it, though, Williams overran second and was tagged out while attempting to dive back. The bright spark was quickly doused. Both Smith and Porter singled that inning yet no runs materialized. It was as if William’s mishap at second took the wind out of Rappahannock.

Page added another run in the top of the fifth to stretch their lead to 8 -1. In the bottom of the fifth, Chucky Jenkins sparked Rappahannock’s last real chance for a comeback by slugging a ground rule double. Then H.B. Wood hit a single but was allowed to take second on an infield error. With runners on second and third, Mike Atkins rapped a .single that sent one runner home. Then Williams followed with another single that knocked in Wood from third. The Page County pitched, who threw about 75 percent curve balls, kept the damage down to two runs. Rappahannock now trailed 8-3.

Neither Page nor Rappahannock did anything in the sixth, leaving the home town Panthers with one inning in which to score five runs just to tie Page. Five was too much to hope for, but Rappahannock did score one run when Williams singled to score Rob Brown from second.

After the game, (poach Don Dawson said his team lost because “we can’t make the easy plays, and they make the hard plays.” Dawson was referring to the sloppy fielding of his players. “That was the difference in the game. We hit the ball with them, but they killed us in the field.”

Players with more than one hit were: Chucky Jenkins (three for four), Jeff Porter (two for three), and Reggie Williams (two for three). Porter threw nine strikeouts.

Rappahannock is now 4 - 6 in the district and 6-7 overall.