Clover Hill Bucks: Welcome
|
 |
Welcome to the online home of the Clover Hill Bucks of the Rockingham County Baseball League.
For anyone unfamiliar with the RCBL, it is the second oldest continuous baseball league in the country - trailing only the major leagues. The RCBL was founded in 1924 and has included teams from across Rockingham County and up and down the Shenandoah Valley.
The league currently boasts seven teams, including Clover Hill, Bridgewater, Broadway, Elkton, Montezuma, New Market and Stuarts Draft. Teams play about three games a week, beginning in mid-May and lasting until the end of July. All seven teams make the playoffs, which begin around the first week of August and continue all month. The first round is a best-of-three series, followed by a best-of-five semifinals and a best-of-seven finals.
Players range from high school stars to college players, ex-pros and really anyone else who wants to participate.
Beginning in 1999, the league made the switch to wooden bats from aluminum.
Clover Hill is one of the league's oldest franchises. The team began play in 1954 and plays its games in the one-of-a-kind Buck Bowman Park, which is widely considered one of the league's top ballparks.
The Bucks won their seventh title in eight seasons last summer, downing Stuarts Draft, four games to three, in the finals. The Bucks went 19-5 in the regular season, then swept New Market, three games to none, in the semifinals to advance to the finals, again, against Stuarts Draft. In the finals, the Bucks fell behind, two games to one, but rallied to take a 3-2 series lead before falling in game six at Draft. In game seven, Brooks Cullen tossed a complete-game shutout to give Clover Hill its fourth consecutive RCBL crown. The Bucks finished the season with a 26-8 record. Over the past four summers, Clover Hill is 128-23 (84.8 win pct.) overall and 34-7 in the playoffs.
In 2009, Clover Hill rallied from a 2-0 deficit and 3-1 hole, sweeping the final three games of the series to capture the RCBL crown. Clover Hill finished the season with a 33-7 record, including a 9-3 mark in the playoffs.
The summer of 2008 marked the Bucks second consecutive defeat of the Diamondbacks in the finals, after defeating Stuarts Draft, four games to one, in the finals series in 2008. That year, the Bucks boasted a 9-1 run in the playoffs, sweeping Shenandoah in round one and Bridgewater in the semifinals. The Bucks finished the summer with a 35-4 record, giving the club a two-year mark of 68-8. Clover Hill went 25-3 in the regular season and topped Draft in a special one-game playoff for the league pennant.
The Bucks also swept through the playoffs in 2007 with a 9-0 record. That run included a four games to none, finals-series sweep of Elkton, which finished second during the regular season. Overall, Clover Hill finished with a 33-4 record last summer and won its final 22 games of the season. After a lackluster 2-3 start, the Bucks won 31 of their next 32 games. The Bucks also won another league pennant, with a 24-4 regular-season record.
In 2006, the Bucks captured the RCBL pennant, with a 21-7 record, and recorded sweeps in the first and second rounds before losing four-straight to Montezuma in the finals.
Prior to that, the Bucks won three consecutive RCBL titles from 2003-05, including a 4-2 win over pennant winner Elkton in the 2005 finals. The Bucks fought off elimination five times in the first (2-1 series win over New Market) and second rounds (3-2 series win over Montezuma), before topping the Blue Sox for the league crown.
During the Bucks' 56 years in the RCBL, the team has captured 13 league pennants (1959, 63, 64, 76, 78, 82, 99, 2003, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10) and 15 series titles (1955, 63, 75, 76, 82, 85, 87, 97, 2003, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10). The Bucks won the series in just their second year in the league (1955) and their first pennant four years later, in 1959.
In league history, Bridgewater owns the record for both pennants (20 - the earliest being in 1925 and the most recent in 1996) and series titles (16 - earliest was 1927 and most recent was 1999). Clover Hill, with 15, has the second most series titles and ranks three ahead of Linville (10) and two in front of Grottoes (9). Linville, with 14, ranks second in pennants, while the Bucks are third with 12.
From 1984 through 1996, Bridgewater owned the RCBL. The Reds won the pennant each year, except in 1987 when Linville took the flag, and captured nine series wins - including eight-straight from 1988-95. Grottoes snapped the Reds' series streak in 1996, coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the finals.
After the Reds' remarkable run, the league, in recent years, has shown a great deal of parity - with seven different teams winning pennants from 1997 through 2006 and eight separate teams claiming series titles over the same stretch. Montezuma joined the list of winners in 2006, capturing the team's first title since 1998, when it was known as Briery Branch.
So take some time to check out this site, which will include scores, stats, photos and game recaps. It will, hopefully, be updated frequently in the "My Site News" section. Please feel free to let me know what you think.