It was the bottom of the seventh. The Stone Bridge Bulldogs were down by one run to the Broad Run Spartans. Team captain Adam Ventre prepared to go up to bat.
"I heard him say, 'All right, we're tying this up right now,'" said assistant varsity coach James Timbers. "He proceeded to walk to the mound and hit a home run."
Not bad for a kid whose parents were told he had signs of cerebral palsy at birth.
After having some birth trauma, Ventre displayed a little weakness in his muscles. His adoptive parents took him to a therapist at 5 months who told him the problem was not serious, but they shouldn't expect too much of him.
"I remember the woman's voice saying to me, 'I don't expect Adam to be a star in any athletic activities,'" Joe Ventre said.
The Ventres were told their son might not walk until he was 2 years old, a possibility that Joe Ventre rejected.
"I said, the next time we come back, he's going to walk into the doctor's office," Joe Ventre said. At 11 months, Adam did.
SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER, Adam Ventre was the catcher of a tightly knit varsity baseball team that went nearly undefeated in his two years as captain. His team was district champion those two years, and Adam Ventre played on the all-district team.
"It's been my main focus in high school," Adam Ventre said. He relished the Bulldogs' standing rivalry with the Loudoun Valley Vikings.
"Every game we played, it was just intense," he said. "Every pitch, every out. Usually we came out on top."
He also was an excellent student near the top of the class of 2004. He's got some face recognition too, as an anchor of Stone Bridge's video morning announcements for the past year, a new feature that he and a group of students pioneered after lobbying principal James Person.
"He's got the gift of gab," Person said.
As a student, Adam Ventre welcomed the challenge presented by Advanced Placement English teacher Sarah Sturtz, who invited students to place literature in a current context.
"We had a mature classroom atmosphere," Adam Ventre said. "We could openly discuss politics and world events."
TO SAY STURTZ admires Adam Ventre is a bit of an understatement.
"I hope my son turns out just like him," she said. Tobias is 15 months old. "If my boy's as good as Adam Ventre ..." she laughed.
As Adam Ventre's English teacher during both his freshman and senior years, Sturtz had a chance to know him quite well. Even as a new student in school, she said, he had a special quality.
"He always had that rapport with people, that personality that people liked," she said. "That was there in ninth grade."
Sturtz appreciated Adam Ventre's honesty — when he was tired from a late baseball game, he never made excuses — and, she said, he appreciated hers.
When he brought her a paper, she would say, "Adam, that's almost good."
"He'd ask, 'Why can't you just say it's good?' 'Because it is almost good,'" Sturtz said with a laugh. "He appreciated that."
When Adam Ventre goes to the University of Virginia this fall as a member of the engineering school, he'll also try to walk on as a catcher for the Cavaliers. He turned down a scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology and a sure spot on the baseball team to attend the better college.
"He's going to make someone a lovely husband and a lovely father," Sturtz said. "He's very kind."