Fluvanna County baseball’s J.J. Glasscock was in a groove, and as the fifth inning ended, he exited the field with a little sauce, leaping over the first base line and clicking his heels.
“I play with pizazz you could say — I try and play with everything I’ve got because baseball is fun,” Glasscock said. “It’s really hard to play baseball and you’ve got to have fun with it.”
Pizazz may be selling it short when you’re taking the mound with a pink glove and bringing the energy and enthusiasm between innings while throwing a complete game win against one of the state’s remaining undefeated squads.
Whatever Glasscock was doing was working as the Flucos picked up their sixth straight win and handed Western Albemarle the Warriors’ first loss of the 2023 season with a 5-3 victory Tuesday night.
The Flucos’ West Virginia-bound ace finished the night with 12 strikeouts while scattering three hits and two walks. All three runs were unearned with Western’s heady base running capitalizing on three Fluvanna County errors. Glasscock didn’t let any single mistake or situation impact his focus as he kept coming back with a renewed focus on every batter in a game that was hugely important for the Flucos.
“I zone out – they can say all they want, coaches can complain all they want, but I’m focused on me, my catcher and the height of the batter,” Glasscock said. “Not the batter, but the height of the batter.”
Fluvanna has reeled off the six straight wins after a 1-3 start to the season, righting the ship thanks to an offense that has started to come to life and scratched out five hard-earned runs against Western Tuesday night.
“I was very happy, normally we’re a little slow hitting wise but we’re very young, so it makes sense,” Glasscock said. “I’m very happy we scored as many as we did.”
Western briefly tied the game in the third inning at 2-2 after the Flucos’ overthrew a couple of balls, but Fluvanna retook a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third and then extended it with a two-RBI double to left field by Camdyn Via in the bottom of the fourth that scored Tyler Coleman and Bradley Cox. Cody Peck went 2-for-3 at the plate with an RBI and Via scored twice on the night.
Josh Lively finished with five strikeouts for the Warriors and allowed just three earned runs while giving up six hits and five walks.
The Warriors are 9-1 on the year and now both the Flucos and Warriors are 5-1 in Jefferson District play, setting up an interesting second half of the district race. The Flucos face Liberty Christian Saturday before facing Albemarle Monday and Tuesday as part of a busy four days. Western will take on Monticello Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.
