WINDSOR — Bill Ewers got the Gatorade bath he expected and the Roanoke Valley U14 all-star team captured the second district title of the day for the area, defeating Dare County, 12-2, Sunday afternoon in Windsor.

Roanoke Valley U14 catcher Megan Johnson drives in a run during their, 12-2, victory over Dare County Sunday. Randy Wrenn | Daily Herald Advertisement

The local squad may have made their faithful nervous, falling behind early to Dare County, but they gathered themselves soon enough and exploded for nine runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to lock up the victory. “We just came in a little nervous and over confident I believe and a little tense,” Head coach Bill Ewers said. “We had a talk in the second inning and I told them to relax, play our game and put the bat on the ball and good things would happen. It was a total team effort.”

The Roanoke Valley team surrendered the two runs to Dare County in the top of the first thanks to some sloppy errors, then got on the board in the bottom of the first thanks to a Kallie Arthur RBI. The contest became a defensive struggle the next two innings before the Roanoke Valley team got hot, jumping on Dare County and never looking back. The local squad started getting some breaks at the plate and before Dare County could breath the bases were loaded in the bottom of the fourth inning. Roanoke Valley tied the game at two on a passed ball, then took their first and final lead when Arthur came home after a Dare County mishap. Connor Massey then scored a run with a hit and the flood gates begin to open.

Paula Hardy, Megan Johnson, Karissa Moss and Torie Ladendorf all hit consecutive RBIs to put the Roanoke Valley ahead, 8-2. The Roanoke Valley squad then added two more runs on passed balls to go ahead eight, 10-2, headed into the fifth inning. Dare County couldn’t get back into the swing of things after that and Hardy’s two RBI shot in the bottom of the fifth ended the game and locked up the U14 title.

It took Ewers team a little while to get hot at the plate, but once they did there was nothing Dare County could do but watch.

“My bats weren’t that hot to begin with the first couple of innings so we went to the short game a little bit,” he explained. “That put pressure on the defense and we had some great base running and it just broke loose from there.”