STATE EXTRA: Three arms know where they want to go

By Corine Gatti

Published: June 2, 2008

The standard bearer for Waynesboro this season was “never surrender.” Freshman Drew DeMoss discovered that during his short tenure wearing a Little Giants’ jersey. Last Thursday, DeMoss stopped the bleeding in relief and closed the door on Jefferson Forest 10-8 for the Group AA berth. He will join the hurlers Joseph Lucas and Jeremy Hahn. Those three arms are expected to carry the Giants in their bid for a return trip the Final Four.
DeMoss is enthralled by the prospect of going all the way in his rookie season.
“It’s a big opportunity and I’m proud of the team,” DeMoss said. “It’s pretty cool to be here.”
If the team had the case of the jitters of facing Abingdon tonight in the Group AA quarterfinals, they hid it well under the brims of their purple hats at Kate Collins Field on Monday afternoon.
Lucas and Hahn experienced the wave of excitement last season. Lucas desired a different ending — to be a crowned state champs.
“Last year was my first year playing on varsity and we went to states,” Lucas said. “That was our goal this year, now we are going back. It feels great that we have the same opportunities we did last year after losing five seniors.”
Coach Jim Critzer said his team is never really out of a game, after last week’s come back from 6-1 hole against the Cavaliers, the team deemed themselves as fighters.
“We had another goal this season. It was to get one more game further than we did last year,” Hahn said. “We got three more games hopefully.”
The brotherhood for the three hurlers doesn’t end after the stadium lights dim.
“We’re friends after school, we play games online, we play Halo.” Hahn said.
“Yeah, we go out to eat together for breakfast and dinner, we hang out all the time,” DeMoss said.
Those relationships have infiltrated at game time.
“I don’t think that we would be as good of a team if we weren’t friends,” Lucas said. “We feed off each other and our emotions because we are all friends and we know how each other is going to act. It really helps.”
Critzer was mentioned as one of the anchors of the team.
“All of us have been together so long, so having the same coach has made not just us as the players all jell together, but the players have jelled with the coaches,” Lucas said.
At the start of the season the Giants knew they could go far.
“I think we all expected this.” Lucas said.
“Yeah, I did too,” Hahn said. “Now that we are back we don’t want to stop at all.”
The Giants lost to Alleghany last Friday night, forcing them to hit the road today. But that’s fine with Hahn.
“We know by losing the tournament, we got the luck of the draw by not having to play Hidden Valley,” Hahn said.
Lucas did his homework on Abingdon and knows what to expect.
“I was reading about [Abingdon] online for the past like two weeks,” he said. “They have been out hitting teams by an insane number, scoring a whole bunch of runs, playing good defense. So hopefully we can keep their bats a little quieter.”
In chorus fashion, Hahn, Lucas DeMoss said in unison, “We just need to make sure we play our ‘A’ game.”
As far as any worrisome looks about the season before Saturday, Lucas said the team knows what it has to do.
“We are going all the way, we don’t want this to end,” Lucas said.