Upon Further Review

When the Little Giants baseball team heads south, which is what it takes to get to Rockbridge, their swagger gets the notion that it has to follow them and keep on going. Sure, Waynesboro stopped in Lexington to play the Wildcats on Wednesday, but their swagger must have thought the game was somewhere around Wise County, because that’s where it went.

And the Giants lost that game, sending all of Giantdom into a tizzy and having fans wondering if maybe, just maybe, the team’s new-found swagger might have headed too far north during their season. You know, maybe going high enough to get to their heads.

But then comes Friday and a seventh inning at Fort Defiance that saw the Giants’ three outs away from leaving the door open for the Indians. Suddenly, the swagger heads back up, tops out somewhere around the Massanutten, and a 4-2 seventh-inning deficit turned into a 9-4 Waynesboro win that clinches the Southern Valley District and, more importantly, gives the Giants the much-coveted Region III berth.

I don’t care what coach Jim Critzer wants to call it. Heart? You bet it is. Character? Darn skippy, skipper. We’ll just call it swagger because that seems to wrap everything up pretty nicely. You remember swagger? The thing this team couldn’t find with a GPS strapped to their batting helmets oh, I don’t know, somewhere around the beginning of the season.

“The kids just wouldn’t die,“ Critzer said of his team’s final-at-bat comeback.

Go ahead, call it that too, if you wish.

And another thing: Leave it to two guys that have come alive this year to get the rally rolling for Waynesboro. After Eric Hall’s single led off the seventh, Josh Craig’s single sent Hall to second and Jeremy Hahn brought in Hall with a hit and an infield error brought in the tying run.

Sure, Jay Thompson is one of the best hitters in the Valley (we’re talking the whole freakin’ show here, folks, when we say Valley. We’re not just talking Southern Valley) and Terrell Thompson is the man when it comes to the leadoff slot, but Craig and Hall have been a huge (and we mean huge) reason the Little Giants, if they so desired, can rest everybody they want to the remainder of the regular season.

“We are going to have some fun,“ Critzer said. “We are going to get some of the kids in that haven’t played.

Looks like Jim Critzer does desire.

Hey, where you at “Jimmy”: A few weeks ago a commentor using the handle “Jimmy” couldn’t believe anybody would claim that Turner Ashby and Waynesboro was a rivalry, popping out the Knights’ dominance over Waynesboro (and, before this year, the rest of the state for that matter). So, Mr. “Jimmy” we’ll leave you with this from Critzer: “We have two games with TA and that’s a rivalry, I don’t care what district they’re in.“

So, yeah “Jimmy,“ you might want to play sports before you start guessing what rivalries are. I’m just saying.

The way things have been going at Wilson Memorial, Derek McDaniel and his Green Hornets would have settled for a win over the Our Lady of the Blessed Angel Academy in baseball. Well, we’re sure a rivalry win over Riverheads doesn’t hurt either.

Wilson’s 4-2 win over the Pride came two days after McDaniel put it all the line and said his Green Hornets just weren’t a good team.

So all Alex Fisher did was pitch a gem whilst outdueling Riverheads’ Miles Wood to pick up the victory. “I just wanted to keep calm and get the victory for us,“ Fisher said. Why? Because everybody that’s anybody in the Shenandoah District at the Augusta County schools knows that no matter how not good you are, you don’t lose to those other busters from across the way. Really, that’s how it works.

But hey, at least one Wilson Memorial team beat Riverheads. The boys soccer team will have to wait until they head to Buffalo Gap on Tuesday to clinch the district. The Wilson girls soccer team, meanwhile, will probably have to wait until next year, you know, when they’re a year older, wiser and better. (Please, hold all e-mails. Thanks.)

OK, off the topic here, but am I the only one who finds it laughable that a sports editor at another paper in Augusta County will (once again) blog about the easy road to regionals, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, then, to quote, writes: “I guess that’s the world we are living in today where everyone wants something handed out to them instead of working hard for it.“ Gee, I don’t know there buddy. Is this any worse than, let’s say, putting 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds on the front page of the sports section every other day, in an attempt to get more Web hits, while a high school varsity season is still in full swing? And we wonder why some parents turn into this.

Practice what you preach, buddy. Practice what you preach. It’s pretty simple, actually.