Coming of age

By Shane Mettlen

Published: July 24, 2008

Some American Legion baseball teams are loaded with players either with college experience or high-caliber players on their way to college in the fall. Most teams at this level are basically a local high school all-star team.

In Culpeper, the Post 330 Legion squad is loaded with kids that also played at the highest level of Little League this summer.

Culpeper’s young guns weren’t the best team around, but despite relying somewhat on a group of players that had only junior varsity experience, they weren’t bad either.

Post 330 proved it Wednesday afternoon with an opening round victory against North Rockingham in the District 16 Tournament. Rainouts pushed the rest of the tourney back a day and now Culpeper will play Front Royal 4 p.m. today at Fireman’s Field in Purcellville.

Post 330 advanced to the double-elimination round of its playoffs with the North Rockingham win, marking the improvement it made during the summer. Culpeper started the season with five straight losses, including a 2-1 defeat to North Rockingham. Post 330 then won the next three meetings between the teams and finished the regular season with a 6-9 record, playing better than .500 ball after that rocky start.

With graduating CCHS seniors such as Jeremy Brown and Hunter Kenney playing in Orange, where they played last year when Culpeper didn’t have an American Legion team, Post 330 manager Jeff Crane had little choice but to throw a handful of rising sophomores and juniors into his lineup.

With rising junior Brandon Scott and rising senior Brandon Mack — both all-district caliber players for the Blue Devils this spring — ready to serve as team leaders the younger Post 330 players have hit their stride this postseason.

Josh Gardiner, who was called up to the varsity late in the high school season, is hitting .306 this summer and recorded a stolen base in the most recent victory. Nic Donovan, who ran track instead of playing baseball for CCHS this spring, is hitting .353 and rising senior Nolan Jenkins is hitting .324.

And the youngsters have provided Crane with some solid pitching as well. Brian Thompson, a rising junior, didn’t make the rotation for CCHS this spring, but had a 2.08 ERA for Post 330 in the regular season. Geoff Ward — a JV player — had a 2.70 ERA and Donovan was second on the team with 13 regular season strikeouts.

The emergence of so many good young players is a good sign for the county’s high schools. With the opening of Eastern View this fall, the county will have to field two varsity programs with the same number of students it pulled from to field a 10-10 team at CCHS this spring.

But players such as Gardiner and Ward are playing on a varsity level this summer and doing quite well. A handful of others are gaining the kind of experience they never would have if Culpeper didn’t have an American Legion squad this summer.

There might not be enough superstars to go around when both the Cyclones and Devils take the field next spring, but Post 330 is making it seem like there just might be enough solid young players to make both schools competitive.

Shane Mettlen can be reached at 825-0771, ext. 127 or