The scary thing is — based on their latest outing — the Mustangs just might be underrated.

East (13-0) played a near-perfect game in dismantling a pretty fair North Rowan team 10-0 in six innings at Staton Field on Wednesday.

“We played well,” said East coach Jeff Safrit. “We know North came in here off winning a big league game for first place on Tuesday (the Cavs beat Salisbury 12-2), but this was still a real good game for us. We needed this kind of game.”

Every coach needs this kind of game.

East’s sophomore lefty Julian Sides continued his quietly phenomenal season with a one-hitter. That lone hit was Daniel Moore’s fly ball that fell just in front of left fielder Adam Cornelius and center fielder Brett Peiffer in the second inning. Moore’s single landed just seconds after East’s coaches had waved the outfielders a couple of steps in what turned out to be the wrong direction.

“Oh yeah,” said North head coach Bill Kesler. “It could’ve easily been a no-hitter.”

Sides (3-0) has numbers that would make Randy Johnson smile. He’s fanned 19 batters and walked two this season. The really alarming thing for opponents is that he’s the third guy in the Mustangs’ loaded rotation behind Brian Hatley (5-0) and Jeremy Teague (4-0). The Mustangs are in an infinitely better position on the hill than last year when they had to rely basically on one hurler — graduated Chad Walker — to pitch all the key games.

Sides will become even more important very soon, because East is headed for some weeks with three conference games.

“Sides has gotten a chance to show what he can do in our nonconference games,” said Safrit. “This season, we’ve used our nonconference schedule as well as we ever have.”

“Everything worked for me today,” said Sides. “Once I got a big lead, the coaches told me to pitch like it was 1-0. I did, and everything just fell in place.”

“We didn’t swing the bats,” said Kesler. “But then again, Sides was pretty good. He’s got a nice curve ball.”

East played errorless defense behind Sides.

And with the bats, the Mustangs looked lethal against North’s No. 2 hurler, Brandon Doby, who came in undefeated. Especially hot were Drew Davis, who laced three solid hits; Andrew Barrier who slammed an opposite-field homer and; Jonathan Heyer, who drove in three runs with a pair of ringing doubles that sizzled through the outfield grass like frying bacon.

“Heyer has had a great week,” said Safrit.

That’s putting it mildly. Heyer, who is nearly recovered from a serious ankle injury, has eight RBIs in the last two days. That’s a season’s output for some.

Cal Hayes Jr. scored the first East run on an error and Brian Hatley made it 2-0 in the second with a sacrifice fly.

Barrier’s two-run blast with Jeremy Alderman aboard made it 4-0 in the third and East got consecutive two-out rips from Davis, Brett Peiffer, Heyer and Alderman for a four-run fourth to bust the contest wide open.

East ended the game via the 10-run rule in the sixth on doubles by Davis and Heyer and a throwing error.

Kesler, whose team had gone to the wire with East earlier this season in Spencer, said what happened to his team was pretty simple. “You come to Granite Quarry and you’re not ready to play, you’re gonna get beat,” he said.

Kesler’s team is a solid 9-4, but this time it ran into a solid wall named Sides.