By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
To open their 2025 season, Coach Brady Johnson and his North Adams Green Devils baseball squad made the trip to VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe on Monday night, with their opponent being the Southeastern Panthers. Though playing in the VA is usually a fun experience for our local teams, Coach Johnson might not agree this time as he saw his team go hitless in suffering a 7-1 defeat.
The Devils were the visitors on the scoreboard and Johnson tabbed Carsyn Raines as his starter in the opener that had a 7 p.m. first pitch under the lights. Raines gave up a single run in the bottom of the first then tossed three scoreless frames before a fateful bottom of the fifth where the Panthers erupted for six runs to sew up the win.
The Devils’ offense was totally stifled by Southeastern pitching, managing just three base runners through their first five at-bats, those coming on an error, a dropped third strike and a walk. Fortunately, after the first inning run, Raines held the Panthers at bay and kept it a one-run game until the bottom of the fifth. In that inning, three of the first four Southeastern hitters were plunked by Raines’ offerings. An error allowed a run to score but a strikeout for the second out put the Devils in position to get out of the jam, but after Raines was replaced on the bump by Trace Evans, the Panthers tacked on three more to take a commanding 7-0 lead after five.
Without the benefit of a hit, the Devils scratched across their only run of the game in the top half of the sixth. Kaleb Eldridge reached on an error and made it all the way around the bases on two more Southeastern errors. That was all she wrote for the North Adams offense on the night as they went down in order in the top of the seventh as the Panthers grabbed the 7-1 victory.
Southeastern hurler Carson McWhorter was the story of the game, tossing a seven inning no-hitter, walking just two and amassing 14 strikeouts. Raines took the loss, giving up five runs, only two earned, in 4 2/3 innings of work.
After the loss, the Devils had little turnaround time as they were on their home field on Tuesday afternoon to host the Lynchburg-Clay Mustangs in their first Southern Hills Athletic Conference outing. That score was not available by press time.
