Grimsley-Page: This One’s About Baseball

The Metro 4-A Conference Tournament was in full swing Tuesday night at Grimsley and the results were a bit lopsided. The Whirlies made a statement at least a statement about where Grimsley and Page stand right now in baseball.

The Whirlies jumped on the Pirates early with 4 runs in the first two innings and were ahead 8-0 before Page could even think about trying to settle down. Leadoff man Clint Moore took the Pirates starting pitcher to the fence for a triple and Alan Ashkinazy’s boys in the Blue and White from Grimsley never had to look back.

Grimsley starter on the hill Derek Bloomquist had his curveball working and the Pirates were at a loss for ways to try to get runs across the plate. Page also made a few fielding and throwing errors that allowed the Whirlies to grab some extra bases and Ashkinazy was keeping his windmill arm moving in the third base coaches box as he was waving the Whirlies home. Alan’s boys even ran through the stop sign a couple of times because they were so aggressive in their attempts to put Page away early and often.

The hard and aggressive nature by Grimsley paid off when Cody Walker let one rip and it left the yard to deep right field in top of the sixth inning with Grimsley up 9-0 before Walker gave the ball a ride. With Walker’s homerun the Whirlies now had their 10 run lead secured and the victory belonged to Grimsley.

The high school rules state that if you have a ten run lead over your opponent after five innings then you are declared the winner and the game does not have to go the full 7 frames. Grimsley got it done and they ended Page’s season in the process.

Bloomquist the Whirlies stater gave up no runs and struck out five Pirate batters and he had the Page players digging for the ball and ready to swing at anything that was coming over the plate because he had them way off balance with his curveball. Cody Walker was the big man at the plate with his game ending walkoff homerun and he went 3-4 with 3 RBI’s. Clint Moore had the big triple to get the game going and he also scored 2 runs. Dusty Shutt had a couple of RBI’s and Nick Jones was 2-2 with 2 RBI’s.

Grimsley will move on to play at North Forsyth on Wednesday night and with the Vikings being the number one seed in the tourney it will be tough but the Whirlies are up to the challenge. Northwest Guilford beat Smith 12-4 and will play East Forsyth on Wednesday at North Forsyth. The top two teams get into the playoffs automatically and then there will be 4 wildcards coming from different areas around the state.

Ragsdale, Southwest Guilford, Southern Guilford and Northeast Guilford were also winners in their conference tournaments on Tuesday.

Grimsley also knocked off Page in softball 6-1 and they have the dangerous Northwest Guilford Vikings coming up next. In girls soccer Southeast and Northeast won their first round playoff games by the same shutout 4-0 scores over Reagan and Oxford Webb respectively.

The Grimsley boys won in their Lacrosse match versus Raleigh Wakefield 15-11 and move on to round #2 of the 4-A playoffs and the Whirlie’s Colin Sherwood has to be one of the best, if not the best Lacrosse player in the entire state of North Carolina. He had 4 goals in the win over Wakefield and he could have had many more.