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VA/DC Scout Blog: Frank Cox at Woodgrove 6/26

June 28, 2021
John Nolan
Virginia Scouting Director & Managing Editor

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Saturday afternoon, Frank Cox traveled to the northwestern corner of Loudoun County to take on Woodgrove for the 2021 Class 5 State Championship. Both teams featured senior-laden lineups and both had cruised to blowout victories in the State semifinals. Sticking with symmetry, both teams sent their senior aces to the mound for the start, Cox going with righthander Nathan Hawley (VMI) and Woodgrove going with righty Christian Hile (Marshall). 

Cox the scoring going in the top of the first. Ethan Anderson (Virginia) singled through the left side with two outs and then quickly stole second base. Fenwick Trimble (James Madison) rolled a single up the middle, driving in Anderson and giving the Falcons an early 1-0 lead. 

Hawley worked around a Michael Thomas double in the bottom of the first to put up a scoreless inning. Hile responded with a scoreless inning of his own in the top of the second, but he did have to work around a pair of walks in a high-stress inning. Hile led off the bottom of the second with a home run down the leftfield line, tying the game at 1. Hawley got through the rest of the inning quickly and after 2 we were tied at 1. 

Both pitchers threw a scoreless third, Hile again having to work through some trouble, and Hawley striking out the side in short order to keep the score knotted at 1 after three innings. In the top of the fourth, things got weird. Hile gave up singles to Gavin Spencer (CNU) and John Bastiaans (VA Wesleyan) to open the inning with runners on the corners. Austin Irby (East Carolina) then hit a shallow pop, and Spencer tagged and took off to try and score. The throw pulled catcher Nathan Favereaux (Patrick Henry CC) up the line and into Spencer for a hard collision. Spencer was tagged and initially called out. After an umpire conference, it was ruled that Favereaux had blocked Spencer's path to home plate and that was interference, scoring the run. Woodgrove went to the pen after this, bringing in junior righty Joey Colucci. On his first pitch to Thomas White, Cox ran a safety squeeze. White appeared to get the bunt down safely, but again the umpires came together and determined that White's bat had contacted the ball as he was putting it on the ground, which again makes interference. White was ruled out and Bastiaans sent back to third, now with it being two outs. With two outs, Kyle Edwards (Old Dominion) hit a deep drive to right-center that was probably catchable, but was lost in the afternoon sun and went for a double, scoring another run. In the middle of the fourth, Cox had taken a 3-1 lead.

Woodgrove tried to answer in the bottom of the fourth, with JD Robinson (VA Wesleyan) reaching on a hit-by-pitch and then Hile being intentionally walked behind him. Hawley was able to snuff out the threat there with a strikeout and a fly out and Cox held a 3-1 lead after four.

Cox added to that emphatically in the top of the fifth as Anderson launched the first pitch of the inning for a deep home run into the wind in right-center, making the score 4-1. Trimble doubled down the line and was later driven in when an Irby pop behind short fell into no-man's land for an RBI single, making the score 5-1. 

Hawley locked into cruse control in the fifth and sixth, firing perfect innings as the Falcons added four more runs in the top of the sixth to extend the lead to 9-1 after six. Cox added two more in the top of the seventh, and while Woodgrove did add another run in the bottom half of the inning, it was not enough and Cox won the State Championship by a final score of 11-2.

Hawley went the distance, 7 IP, 2 R, 4 H, 9 K, 2 BB. Bastiaans, Anderson, and Trimble each had multi-hit games while Edwards was 1-3 with 2 BBs out of the leadoff spot for Cox. Hile was great in the first three innings but got charged with 2 runs in the fourth which muddied his line a bit, ultimately he went 3.1 IP, 3 R, 4 H, 4 K and was 2-2 with a BB and a HR at the plate. Thomas was 1-3 and David Rivera-Lopez was 1-1 with a pinch-hit RBI single.

 

 

 

Frank Cox 

 

 

 

John Bastiaans 1B / 2B / Frank W. Cox , VA / 2021

 

 

 

 

Nathan Hawley RHP / OF / Frank W. Cox, VA / 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woodgrove 

 

 

Joey Colucci RHP / OF / Woodgrove, VA / 2022

Colucci is 6-4 with a lanky long frame that he has a lot of room to add strength to. He throws from a low three-quarters arm slot with a long loose, very quick arm action that has a bit of effort to it. Creates some deception, shoulders are uphill and closed, lands closed with a bit of a fall off finish and some recoil. Fastball was 86-88, touching 89 a few times. Pitch has some hard late armside run to it and rides a bit when it is up in the zone. Threw a couple of curveballs in the game but didn't have feel for the pitch during his outing. Has the ability to get swings-and-misses with his fastball and has room to add strength and a couple more ticks as he continues to develop, a potential high-level arm.

 

Christian Hile RHP / OF / Woodgrove, VA / 2021

 

 

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