Young Glenvar baseball team eyes return to title game in 2014

RADFORD - The fifth-place hitter for Wilson Memorial High School's 2013 baseball team was a hulking senior named Evan Driver.

Glenvar's starting lineup barely had a few kids with a license.

Youth was not served Sunday as a Glenvar team that had 13 underclassmen on a 16-man roster came one step short of graduating to the top of the Group A Division 2 baseball ranks.

A second state championship in school history was not to be. Wilson Memorial - which had seven seniors put on caps and gowns at home plate following a semifinal win Saturday over Grayson County - ended the Highlanders' hopes with a 6-4 victory at Radford University.

Glenvar would like to return in 2014 and the boys from western Roanoke County might not need their GPS.

"I'm disappointed, but we have basically next year's team back so we should be here again," Glenvar shortstop Austin Fox said.

Fox was one of four juniors in Glenvar's starting lineup, which also included two sophomores and a pair of freshmen.

None of Glenvar's players had been born the last time the Highlanders won their only state title - a Group A crown in 1994.

"We don't want anything but the big one," junior catcher Tyler DeHart said. "We're just going to try to go out, work hard and try to get it next year. We've got a group of good young hard-workers. We're going to put some time in the offseason and get it done."

Glenvar fell behind 4-0 after three innings Sunday and never caught up. The Green Hornets amassed 12 hits against Highlanders starter Tyler Crockett and sophomore reliever Kevin Steele.

Wilson, a team that was the victim of a no-hitter in the Region B final against defending state champion William Monroe, got at least one hit from eight of the nine men in its batting order.

"You can attribute that to mental mistakes," Glenvar coach Billy Wells said. "We're throwing 0-2 pitches over the white and we never do that. They made us pay for those. There's some nerves and stuff here, but mistakes we haven't been making for the last month to get us here, we made those today ... high-school kids."

Glenvar mustered six hits against two Wilson pitchers, but the Highlanders had two runners thrown out on the bases including the potential tying run at the plate in the fifth inning when DeHart tried to score from first on a throwing error.

No one wanted the Highlanders to win Sunday more than Wells, a Glenvar alumnus who became the third coach to take the program to a state final in the past 20 years.

"I played baseball back at Glenvar in the '70s," Wells said. "Since Glenvar lost to [Turner Ashby] back in the finals in '74, we've had really strong baseball except in the first few years when the high school started up back in the '80s."

Wells takes a no-nonsense approach to coaching. The results showed this spring after Glenvar began the season 2-7. The Highlanders, who have varying baseball backgrounds, bounced back to win the Three Rivers District and Region C titles.

"Some of them play some travel ball," Wells said. "Nobody plays Legion ball, that showcase stuff. A lot of them, they show up the first day of practice and they have to find their glove and their cleats in the closest the night before.

"We're pretty tough on them. We work them pretty hard and pretty long."

Wells, a former head coach at Shawsville and Eastern Montgomery, isn't sure he will return in 2014. Before deciding, he will make an annual pilgrimage to the College World Series next week.

"I'm undecided," Wells said. "I've got my 30 years in of teaching. This has been a long year. I'm so tired of working on the field, basically seven days a week and all year-round. Fundraising and all that stuff's draining. If I could just step on the field and coach every day, they'd have to run me out."

DeHart said he expects the coach to return.

"His love for the game, I never question it," the Glenvar catcher said. "I think he'll be back. He wants the big one. He's been coaching forever. We want him back. He's old-school and we like that. He knows his baseball well. He always prepares us with good scouting reports. He goes out there and works just as hard as we do."

It took extra work in 2013 and despite Sunday's loss the results were satisfying.

"No doubt," Wells said. "We knew it was going to be kind of tough this year. We started out a little rougher than I thought. Crockett put us on his back the last month with his great leadership and the kids just believed they could beat anybody."

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