Opening Day gem
- Updated: February 18, 2021
Pleasant Valley’s Almaroad opens his senior season, Raiders’ campaign with a five-inning no-hitter
By East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE – Jackson Almaroad got his and Pleasant Valley’s baseball season off to a big start Thursday when he pitched a five-inning no-hitter in a 10-0 shutout of Hanceville.
The senior right-hander came within a second-inning walk of a perfect game in the five-inning game. He threw 61 pitches craftily called by first-year pitching coach Colton Morris (43 for strikes) and struck out 12.
“He’s been a starter since the eighth grade for us and it’s finally his senior year and he stepped up,” PV coach Chris Youngman said. “We told him we were limiting pitches and he got through the third and fourth innings and started talking about it.”
It was Almaroad’s first career no-hitter and the first by a PV pitcher in Youngman’s tenure. Almaroad was the winning pitcher in Youngman’s first career victory with the Raiders.
“We tried to limit the pitches and he asked if he could stay in; he knew what it was,” Youngman said. “He said he’d never thrown one before, I’ll get the job done and we turned him loose. He stayed within the limit so he could pitch later and his stuff looked good.”
He got plenty of support from his hitters. The Raiders pounded 10 hits and broke the game open with a seven-run second inning.
Dalton McElroy, Pelham Parris, Caleb Shew and Almaroad all had two hits. Parris and Garrett Cranmer both drove in a pair of runs and leadoff man Zeke Curvin scored three times.
The Raiders host Cleburne County Friday. The standard has been set.
Pleasant Valley 10, Hanceville 0
Hanceville 000 00 – 0 0 0
Pleasant Valley 172 0x – 10 10 0
WP: Jackson Almaroad. LP: Bo Joles. 2B: Caleb Shew (PV), Pelham Parris (PV), Garrett Cranmer (PV). 3B: Zeke Curvin (PV).
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