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Rowan County’s Brian Hatley stared down at Robert Scott in the seventh inning and prepared to deliver a blazing fastball.
The Concord slugger swung through the pitch, and Hatley celebrated the moment with a fist pump as he danced off the mound. His last six outs had come via the strikeout, all of them with runners in scoring position.
Hatley’s dominance in key situations helped Rowan County to a 7-4 win Wednesday night and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five Area III semifinal series. Concord plays host for tonight’s potential clincher at 7:15.
Concord faces elimination thanks to its inability to deliver off Hatley. Both teams finished with 11 hits. Both stranded nine runners. But Rowan scored three runs on two-out hits against Jamie Tucker.
“I thought two guys pitched great games,”Rowan head coach Jim DeHart said. “When people got on base, Hatley got his toughest. We got the hits when we really needed them.”
Rowan (24-9) didn’t even need a hit in the first inning. Cal Hayes Jr. walked, stole second, advanced on Nate Woodburn’s out to the right side and scored on the first of two Hatley sac flies.
Hayes and Woodburn added two-out singles in the second inning to score NickLefko and Brad Canipe for a 3-0 lead. Lefko drove in Hatley on another two-out hit in the fifth to make it 4-0.
“We’re starting to do the little things now, steal bases, move guys over,”Hatley said. “We’re not a team that’s going to hit a lot of home runs. We’ve got to work hard for all our scores.”
Hatley worked plenty hard on the mound, too. Concord put runners on in every inning, stranding two in the first and losing another threat in the second on a double play.
Tucker finally got Concord on the scoreboard with a double in the sixth inning. He came around to score on Bryant Parnell’s single, and DeHart visited the mound for a long, animated conversation.
“Coach DeHart came out that one time and told me to do a little damage control,”Hatley said. “I settled down and got a little more crispness on my pitches.”
To say the least.
Hatley got Brian York, Pat Newsome and Todd Greene swinging at curves for three straight Ks to end the threat. After Chris Hartsell opened the seventh with a single, Pat Hartis went down swinging at a curveball and Matt Baker looked at an outside fastball to set up the confrontation with Scott.
“I got him to look for a curve because Ihad been throwing that a lot for strike three,”Hatley said. “I was able to sneak the fastball by him.”
Hatley finished with nine Ks. He walked only one.
“When we had runners in scoring position, he bowed his back and got tough and we didn’t get the key hits,”Concord head coach Bryan Tyson said. “You know you’ve got to score some runs here and there to stay with Rowan.”
Rowan got one run back —and had one taken away — in the seventh inning. Hatley singled, stole second and took third on a throwing error before coming home on Brett Peiffer’s single. Drew Davis followed with a shot into the right-field corner that would have gone for a triple, but was called a ground-rule double. Peiffer, already in the dugout after crossing home plate, returned to third, and Tucker escaped the jam trailing 5-1.
Hatley surrendered another double to Tucker, hit so hard it nearly went through the wall in center, to lead off the eighth. Two outs later, Hatley looked to be out of the inning, but Woodburn misplayed Newsome’s grounder to make it 5-2.
Rowan grabbed some much-needed insurance in its half of the eighth. Ben Hampton led off with a walk, took second on Shawn Trosper’s sacrifice and scored on Hayes’ hit to center. Hatley’s deep flyout made it 7-2, which is how it stayed until the next meeting with Scott.
This time, with a man on, Scott slammed a Hatley offering off the light pole in left field to make it 7-4. But Peiffer reeled in Tucker’s line drive to center to get Hatley off the hook in the ninth.
Scott’s blast was the only big hit Concord managed, and it came far too late.
“Twelve hits,”lamented Tyson, whose scorebook read one hit differently than the official scorer’s. “You should win the ballgame when you get 12 hits.”
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Notes: Rowan stole six more bases Wednesday night, to go along with four in six innings from Tuesday. … Concord ace Thomas Wilson is finally ready to go tonight after having to rest his arm from the Watauga series. Fellow lefty JulianSides will get the start for Rowan.
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