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The Wilkes County American Legion baseball team shouldn’t feel too bad about last night’s loss at Newman Park.
Spencer Steedley has everyone’s number right now.
Rowan County’s 15-year-old pitching sensation improved to 5-0 this season after leading his team to a 12-2 win in eight innings. Steedley, in his first season of Legion ball, threw a complete game, allowing four hits and four walks. He needed just 97 pitches to get the job done.
“They just tell me to go out there and throw strikes,” Steedley said. “I just try to do my best, there’s no pressure.”
Steedley earned his second win against Wilkes. In the first meeting, he pitched 62/3 scoreless innings in a four-hit, eight-strikeout performance.
“He’s a good kid and a good pitcher. He’s just going to get better,” Wilkes head coach Kerry Nichols said. “Coach DeHart is on the right line with him.”
Jim DeHart’s pitching lineup boasted some big names entering the season, but for now, the young Steedley remains as unhittable as established stars Daniel Moore and Brian Hatley.
“That kid has more mound presence out there,” DeHart said. “He just has an assortment of pitches, and when you’ve got that, you keep them off stride.”
Wilkes got to Steedley just once. In the third inning, Ryan Nichols doubled home Sammy Styers and Jonathan Whitby scored on a wild pitch to pull Wilkes within 3-2.
Steedley settled down to retire the next eight in a row, as Wilkes managed just three base runners over the final five innings.
The Rowan offense did its part in relaxing Steedley with a six-run third inning.
Hatley made the first and third outs of the inning — in between, Ben Hampton crushed a two-run home run and Rowan chased starting pitcher Jamie Dowell after only 22/3 innings.
“We figured him out from the get-go, but we’ve been facing some fast pitchers,” Hampton said. “It took us that long to get it in our heads to stay back.”
After a walk to Drew Davis, Hampton took a 2-2 fastball and sent it on a line to dead center field. The ball cleared the wall by some 20 feet and took several high hops beyond the fence.
“I was looking fastball, but I was really surprised he tried to sneak one past me,” Hampton said.
Brett Peiffer followed with a single before Dowell hit Brad Canipe and Erik Mowery on consecutive pitches to load the bases.
Reliever Doc Watkins came on to face Cal Hayes Jr., who chopped a grounder to deep short. Brent Miller tried to get an out at second but threw the ball into right field for a 7-2 lead. Nate Woodburn added a two-run single to center for a 9-2 advantage.
“Our pitcher, that was his first start. He gave us everything he had,” Kerry Nichols said. “When you come down here, you’ve got to have your best.”
Steedley deflated any comeback hopes Wilkes might have entertained. Wilkes flailed at the left-hander’s offerings, rarely making clean contact.
“He pitches with a lead and that’s what you want him to do. Throw first strikes,” DeHart said. “He was the same out there in the second and the third as he was in the late innings.”
Steedley certainly didn’t mind the big lead, though. And he also wasn’t overly concerned about pitching his first nine-inning complete game.
Rowan stretched the lead to nine runs when Peiffer lined a two-run homer down the left-field line in the fourth inning. But Watkins retired 11 of the next 13 batters to keep the game going through the seventh.
In the eighth, Steedley needed just nine pitches — and a nifty Hayes to Mowery to Hampton double play — to retire the side.
Rowan was ready to end things in its half. Hatley singled and stole second and third to get in position, then Hampton sent a liner to right for the game-winning sac fly.
“I could have finished it off, but I really wanted them to get that last run,” Steedley said.
After all, at 15 years old, Steedley’s got plenty of time to go the full nine.
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NOTES: Peiffer, after four hard outs at Mooresville, had three of Rowan’s 10 hits Monday. … The struggling Mowery can’t buy a hit, but is keeping his spirits up. He hit a liner to center that Chris Hamblen caught on the dead run, over his shoulder, back to home plate at the warning track. Mowery raced into second base, stopped and pivoted back to the dugout, a chagrined smile across his face.
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