East Rowan got only two hits on Friday night, yet wiped out Salisbury 10-0 in a Cliff Peeler Baseball Classic first-round game shortened to five innings by the 10-run mercy rule.

It was a result that stunned everyone, even winning coach Jeff Safrit, whose team improved to 19-2.

“We’ll take it,” said Safrit, “because we haven’t had a whole lot of gifts this year. But I know Salisbury’s a lot better than this. They’ve beaten some pretty good teams this year.”

The game was a comedy of errors for Salisbury (9-6), but obviously no one on the Hornets’ side was laughing. Because this was a game that Salisbury had really looked forward to. Playing East a good game at Staton Field was the fast track to instant respect. Instead, it turned into a train wreck. Salisbury committed five errors and surrendered 10 walks, a combination which allowed Mustangs to canter around the bases without having to lift a bat.

“It was awkward,” said Salisbury coach Tom Sexton, whose team was playing the game with one eye on the Central Carolina Conference contests next week that will determine its postseason destiny. “We hadn’t played in a week and a half because of rainouts and we’ve got three games in four days next week, so we wanted to get three pitchers (Jimmy Haynes, Boo Blount and Michael Blount) some work. We had to look at it like a spring training game.”

Boo Blount started and did fine. He was down just 2-0 after two innings. And those two runs had scored only because of errors.

But the game suddenly swung in the top of third right after the Hornets put the tying runs aboard with none out on a single by Adam Taylor and Boo Blount’s bunt. Sexton wanted to hit and run with leadoff man Daniel Wallace up. But Wallace swung and missed and East catcher Drew Davis threw Taylor out at third.

“It was the biggest play of the game,” said Sexton. “We were trying to get the wheels turning and it just didn’t work.”

East pitcher Jeremy Teague then fanned Wallace and after walking Michael Blount, got Cole Grams to fly out to end the inning.

After that it was all East. The Mustangs got two more gift runs on Hornet misplays in the third and yet another tainted run in the fourth for a 5-0 lead.

“You make mistakes against East and they’ll make you play for every single one of them,” sighed Sexton.

But the Hornet coach hadn’t seen anything yet. It really got ugly in the last of the fifth.

Haynes, the Hornets’ ace who has won five times this season, had relieved Boo Blount and had gotten through two innings. But in the fifth, his control deserted him. He hit Brett Peiffer with a pitch, gave up a single to Bobby Clester, then walked four straight batters to make it 8-0.

“Jim said he lost his rhythm and just couldn’t get it back,” said Sexton.

Sexton had figured Haynes could get his team through the fifth inning. But when the senior right-hander suddenly lost the strike zone, the Hornets had no one warm to replace him. Sexton called on Justin Spears, but he promptly walked Drew Davis and Brian Hatley, forcing in East’s ninth and 10th runs to bring the game to a screeching halt.

“Those last two walks were mine,” said Sexton. “It wasn’t Justin’s fault at all.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Safrit, shaking his head. “That’s the most walks I’ve seen here. There weren’t many balls hit tonight by either team.”

The bright spot on the night for East was that Teague pitched a heck of a game — a smooth, seven-K, one walk, two-hitter.

Teague had been shelled in his previous start against Northwest Cabarrus but was back in command in this one.