Central’s Varsity Baseball team beats Prince Edward in home opener

The Central Chargers Varsity Baseball team got a big James River District win over Prince Edward in their home opener last week. Central would use strong defense, pitching and timely hitting to get a 7-2 win.

Central would send Christian Hall to the mound and after a lead off walk, the CHS defense turned a double play from LJ Watson to Chandler Childress and over to Ethan Hoover to get out of the inning.

Central would strike first in the bottom of the inning as LJ Watson and Nate Nowlin both walked to start the inning. Josh Paynter would then triple both of them home for an early 2-0 lead. Paynter scored on a Hall single up the middle and Central jumped up 3-0.

In the top of the second Prince Edward would get on the board with a solo home run, but a fly out to Malik Foster and a line drive caught by Nowlin ended the threat. In the bottom of the second, Nowlin would single and steal second but Matthew Fitts settled in for PE on the mound and kept another run from scoring.

The third inning would go quietly for PE, but Central would get another run on the board as Paynter hit a solo home run to make the score 4-1 for the Chargers.

Prince Edward would add another run in the fourth inning to cut the lead to 4-2. Central would get that run and more back in the bottom of the fourth as Chris Fowler singled to lead things off. Drew Howard would come in to run for Fowler and steal second. Watson would get on base with a walk. Nowlin then singled home those two runners. Jeffrey Goodwin would single down the first base line to score Nowlin and Central jumped up 7-2.

Josh Paynter would come on for a relief appearance on the mound and record two strikeouts in a one, two, three inning. Paynter would work two more scoreless innings while collecting 5 strikeouts to close out the victory for the Chargers.

Central would get 7 hits on the night with Paynter (2), Nowlin (2), Goodwin (1), Hall (1) and Fowler (1) accounting for those. Hall went four innings, collected 2 strikeouts and got the win on the mound for Central. Paynter recorded 5 K’s in his 3 innings of relief on the mound.