Fog suspends Rebels' game against Luray

By Jerry Holsworth -- sports@nvdaily.com

NEW MARKET -- For the second time this week, New Market has had a Valley League game called because of weather.

This time it was fog that stopped the Rebels' game against Luray with the scored tied 8-8 to begin the eighth inning.

"That's the way it's been this week," New Market manager Lucas Jones said. "It's made things very interesting."

New Market had its game with Front Royal suspended Monday because of rain. In that game, the Rebels trailed 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded and one out. The game will be completed if it has implications in the standings or on playoff seeding.

Although the Rebels came close to taking the lead in the bottom of the seventh, the game began with an explosion of runs that gave the Wranglers what looked like an insurmountable advantage.

Luray scored seven runs in the second inning, sending 11 batters to the plate against New Market starting pitcher Mike Graham.

Pablo Bermudez got the big hit for Luray in the inning, a towering grand slam over the rightfield fence.

"Even after that we felt that we were still in the ballgame," Jones said. "We've been coming back all year. For our kids to fight back the way they did is a good measure of how we play when we're down. We've only been blown out one time this year. We seem to be able to come back whenever we need to."

The New Market batters were true to their manager's word, clawing back into the game with a big third inning.

After scoring a run in the second off an RBI double by Sanchez Gartman, the Rebels took advantage of six hits and a Luray error to score six runs to tie the score at 7-7.

Zak Messer, Richard Gonzalez, Kenny Mickens and Kevin Rufus all recorded RBIs in the inning.

"Richard is hitting .365 on the season," Jones said. "We like to stack him with Kenny Mickens in the lineup. Kenny's one of the top batters in the league this year and those two have been putting together runs for us all season long."

Gonzalez finished the night 2-for-4 with three RBIs to lead the Rebels. Mickens was 2-for-5 with an RBI. Both also scored a pair of runs.

Luray jumped back ahead 8-7 in the sixth thanks to an RBI single by Daniel Bowman. New Market, however, took advantage of the heavy fog to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh.

"We saw a little bit of everything tonight," Luray manager Mike Bocock said.

A long flyball to deep left by Seth Kivett got lost in the fog by Bowman scoring Mickens, who was at third.

"We made some mistakes and let them get back into the game," Bocock said. "We lose the ball in the fog in the eighth and they tied this thing."

Things could've been worse, however, for the Wranglers. With two outs in the seventh, the Rebels had the bases loaded when Jacob Wilson entered the game in relief for Luray and got the last out of the inning.

"We were really fortunate this time," Bocock said. "Jacob Wilson really pulled us out of the fire."