LANDIS — Concord American Legion star Robert Scott looks less like your average pitcher than Anna Kournikova looks like your average tennis player.

Pitchers are supposed to be long and lean. Scott is, well, let’s just say that he is not especially tall and that he is not particularly thin.

But don’t be fooled. If Dick Vitale broadcast Concord Legion games, he’d be screaming that this kid can flat-out play and flat-out pitch. Scott was nothing short of “Great Scott” on Friday night in Landis, where he shut down reeling South Rowan 8-0.

South had four hits. Two never left the infield. Another was a bloop. Only Jeremy Alderman’s line single to left in the seventh was struck with anything resembling authority.

“Robert was awesome,” said Concord coach Bryan Tyson.

It was Scott’s curveball that had South hitters holding long conversations with themselves. He got ahead of them with a first-pitch curve, then cheerfully let them get themselves out by chasing pitches out of the strike zone.

“Robert had his good curveball,” understated Tyson. “It was breaking off the table.”

Of course, South (4-9 in the league) hasn’t reminded anyone of the ‘27 Yankees at the plate this week. Allen Wilson’s charges, on top of the world not long ago after wins over Rowan and Stanly sandwiched around a cliffhanger loss to first-place Concord (11-3), have now dropped five straight. They’ve hit .211 in those five games and have scored just 12 runs. They haven’t homered since Drew Callicutt nailed one six games ago.

“We’re not swinging the bats,” said Wilson. “The kids are trying as hard as they can, working hard in BP (batting practice). It’s just not happening for them right now, but it’s not from a lack of effort.”

Concord, on the other hand, is back to swinging the aluminum like it’s supposed to. It was held in check in recent back-to-back losses to Kannapolis (only two hits) and Rowan County (three hits against Daniel Moore), but taking Wednesday off apparently revived Tyson’s tired troops.

“We just needed that one day,” said Tyson. “I don’t play and shoot, I was exhausted. I know the kids were.”

Thursday a rejuvenated Concord clobbered Wilkes for 16 runs. Last night, it banged out 10 hits in five innings against right-hander Jared Barnette, who’s been South’s best starter. The biggest of those hits came off the bat of, you guessed it — Scott. The kid with the linebacker body belted a liner across the parking lot when Barnette left a curve up in the third inning. The burly bomber’s blast gave Concord a 3-0 cushion.

“I just kept my weight back like they’ve told me to,” said Scott, who wears Mickey Mantle’s No. 7 and is most likely headed to Pfeiffer University to continue his personal war on baseballs.

“He’s a heckuva hitter,” said Barnette.

“I was scared to death of him,” said South’s Tim Cook, who relieved Barnette.

Scott, who places his toes an inch from the plate and takes the outside corner away, hit over .600 during the recent high school season and was the main reason Mount Pleasant High was ranked near the top of the 2A polls all spring. Scott went 3-for-3 when South played at Concord. He hit a homer off Moore last season and may have hit another one off him on Tuesday had the wind not been blowing in at Newman Park.

“Scott’s good,” said Wilson, as assistant coach Michael Lowman nodded enthusiastically. “But it’s not just him. Concord’s as tough a team as we’ve seen.”

That’s why people can’t simply walk Scott every time. Behind Scott is Pfeiffer-bound Jamie Tucker who rapped out three hits, including two doubles. In front of him is Matt Baker who drove in two runs with long sacrifice flies.

“Concord’s first six hitters are solid,” said Wilson. “Their last three aren’t easy.”

One of those “last three” guys, Todd Greene, drilled a two-out, two-strike triple that broke the game open in the fifth. Greene’s bullet to right followed RBI singles by Bryant Parnell and Brian York and made it 7-0.

South’s chances were few.

Scott walked Daniel Pinyan and Jeremy Teague to start the second, but then fanned Adam Cornelius and retired the next two hitters.

“I got ahead of those guys and I knew if I did that, I’d be OK,” said Scott.

Wilson figured that there might be some second-guessing when he didn’t ask Cornelius, maybe the team’s best bunter, to move the runners over in a scoreless game. But he also had a reason.

“Yeah, we talked about it and you could play for a run there, but one run isn’t going to beat Concord,” he said. “We were trying to break out, hoping for a big inning.”

South had the look of a snake-bitten team in the fifth, which started with infield hits by Alderman and Ryan Schenk. Leadoff man Derick Efird then squared to bunt, but didn’t make contact. The ball bounded away from Concord catcher Patrick Hartis, but he recovered in time to throw out Alderman trying for third.

“You want ‘em to be aggressive,” sighed Wilson. “But down 7-0, you can’t take chances.”

There was nothing else for South fans to yell about outside of two sliding catches in right by Callicutt and four innings of one-hit work out of the pen by Cook, who may have earned a spot in the rotation. Heck, Cook even got Scott out once. That makes him Hall of Fame material.

n

NOTES: South travels to Wilkes tonight. ... Meanwhile, Concord hosts Rowan. ... Tyson will pitch lefty ace Thomas Wilson. ... Tyson said that despite last night’s lopsided result that South is improved from a year ago. He also said he would lose no sleep over the regular-season race, regardless of tonight’s outcome. His concern, like Allen Wilson’s, is the playoffs.