Parry McCluer High School’s long baseball season came to an end in the Region 1C quarterfinals last Wednesday at Fort Chiswell.
Fort Chiswell, the top seed out of the Mountain Empire District, banged out 16 hits and took advantage of some wildness on the mound for the Blues to roll to a 29-0 victory to complete the Mountain Empire’s sweep of the teams from the Pioneer District in the regional quarterfinals. The Pioneers headed into Monday’s semifinal matchup against Giles with a 17-4 overall record.
“Credit to Fort Chiswell,” said PM head coach Bryan Loy. “They were a pretty good overall team. We saw their best two arms, and they swung it well. They were definitely the best team that we’ve seen this year.”
Those two arms belonged to Owen Jackson and Isaac Haislip, who combined to allow just six PM baserunners in the contest. Jackson went the first three innings to earn the win, walking two while striking out eight. Haislip hurled the final two frames and gave up the only PM hit along with four strikeouts.
With those pitching performances, the Pioneers got all the runs they needed in the first, scoring 11 times. Fort Chiswell tallied runs in every inning to post its season-high in runs scored this season.
Six different players recorded multiple hits for the home team, including Spencer Moser, who went 3-for-3 with a home run and five RBIs. Jackson helped his cause with a 2-for-4 outing, which consisted of a double, a triple, four runs scored and five RBIs. Haislip also had a double for one of his two hits while scoring four times and driving in four runs.
“They did a good job of hitting the baseball where we weren’t,” said Loy, concluding his ninth year as the Blues’ head coach. “Sometimes that’s baseball.”
While the Pioneers enjoyed their offensive outburst, they also took advantage of some erratic PM pitching to put runners on base. Four PM pitchers combined for 17 walks and 13 wild pitches in the contest.
PM’s lone hit was a single from Lane Luckton in the fourth inning.
“You look at our record, and you could say, ‘Oh, man, they’re terrible,” said Loy, whose team closed the 2026 campaign with a 3-16 overall mark, going 0-6 in the Pioneer District. “But if you really look at the team we put on the field from the first game of the season to how we were starting to pull things together at the end, I think we definitely improved.”
Loy also noted the youth of this year’s edition of the PM baseball squad, which had only one senior, Sam Griffin, and a handful of players who had not stepped onto a field since their little league days, and said he sees potential for a huge leap going into next season.
“I really think there’s the possibility of a big jump from this year to next year if we can get in there and work hard,” said the PM coach. “We do plenty of reps. It’s just guys getting older and more mature and willing to get in front of the ball. Everybody had to want to work and want the baseball on every pitch.
“I think we will be better next year,” Loy added. “Sometimes years like this can light the fire.”
