STATE EXTRA: Falcons flying high

By Bucky Dent / Media General News Service
Published: June 2, 2008

Abingdon coach Mark Francisco normally uses this week to prepare for his instructional camp that he gives for area Little Leaguers.
“I’ve got to order shirts for it this week,” he said Sunday night.
In between gathering registration forms and picking up T-shirts, Francisco still has a baseball team to coach.
Not that he minds one iota.
The Falcons’ surprising run to a Region IV title has given them a Group AA quarterfinal home game Tuesday night against Region III runnerup Waynesboro.
Abingdon (19-7) lit up the River Ridge District’s top three seeds – Salem, Blacksburg and Hidden Valley – for 32 runs on 37 hits to win its first regional crown since 1987.
Just winning a regional title surprised many experts, given that Hidden Valley trotted out a lineup with three Division I signees and two pro prospects.
That the Falcons captured the championship trophy after their rocky start to the season, though, is even more incomprehensible. After six games, Abingdon was 2-4, making errors as though they were going out of style and struggling to patch together a healthy lineup.
But Francisco never lost faith in his team.
“They’re a good bunch of kids who kept working every day to get better,” he said. “I thought things would get better. Our mantra was to take it one game at a time. It sounds boring, I know, but it’s worked.”
How well has it worked? Try a 17-3 stretch in which two losses occurred to Southwest District champ Richlands, the second a one-run gutwrencher in the SWD tourney finals.
Francisco’s players clearly bought what he was pitching.
“We started off slow,” senior Justin Malone said, “but we’ve come a long way. We’re a great ball club when we’re playing the way we can play.”
“It’s pretty crazy,” outfielder Preston Pionk said of the Falcons’ turnaround. “But we always thought we were a pretty good team. We knew it was a long season and the key was to be playing our best at tournament time.”
Pionk was at the center of Friday’s wild 11-10, nine-inning win over Hidden Valley, scoring four runs, making a game-saving catch in the eighth and hitting the first homer of his life in the top of the ninth to snap a 10-10 tie.
He shared the spotlight with Malone, who went 5-for-6 with three RBI, upping his batting average to .506. Malone, who owns single-season school records with 44 hits and 41 runs despite oblique and elbow injuries, went 9-for-13 in the regionals.
Malone will also start tonight on the mound, where he’s 4-1 with a 1.31 earned run average and 52 strikeouts in 32 innings. Malone was touching 90 mph on Abingdon’s radar gun in an 11-2 win Thursday against Blacksburg.
While playing at home tonight is no guarantee, Malone is more than willing to take his chances with the familiar turf and surroundings.
“It’s going to be big,” he said of playing at Falcon Park. “Everything’s going to be great when we get back home.”
Bucky Dent writes for the Herald Courier in Bristol.