After collisions at the plate, endless arguments with umpires and all the tensions that accompany East andWest Rowan baseball games, Mustang head coach Jeff Safrit was left with the same feeling he’s had all season.

Resignation.

“We won. I’ll take it, I guess,” he said after East’s 6-2 victory in the semifinals of the 3ASouth Piedmont Conference Tournament. “It’s been like this all year. The defense was great and we blew a lot of opportunities.

“I guess I’ll take the pitching and the defense,”Safrit added. “There have been times when I’ve wanted more pitching and defense when we’ve been hitting the ball a lot.”

The win propelled the Mustangs into Thursday’s tournament title game against Central Cabarrus for an almost meaningless showdown between the league’s top two teams. East, the SPC’s No. 1 seed at 22-4, can’t lose the first state playoff spot. Central, No. 2 at 16-5 can’t be bumped from there, either.

The important game Thursday at Staton Field takes place at 4 p.m. when West and Kannapolis face off in a play-in game. When the Falcons (13-11) and Wonders lost Tuesday in the semis, they set up a winner-take-all game for the right to keep playing. The SPCtitle game will follow at 7.

But theFalcons didn’t want to wait until Thursday — especially after they watched Kannapolis lose to Central 8-1 in Tuesday’s early game.

“We came out here with the mentality that we were going to beat the crap out of them,”West catcher Ben Hampton said. “We were going to win it for the seniors so we could make the playoffs. It didn’t happen.”

Julian Sides made sure of that. The East sophomore, after two shaky innings, got his curveball going and cruised to a complete-game five-hitter.

West’s Ryan Schenk singled and scored to lead off the first inning and John Brooks doubled and scored in the second on a perfect suicide squeeze bunt from Justin Graham. Sides also walked two batters in the first two innings.

“I was trying to find a groove in there. I didn’t feel like I was in a groove at the beginning of the game,”Sides said. “About the fourth inning I felt good with my curve.”

His control actually returned much sooner. After Brooks’ double to lead off the second, West went hitless until Graham’s single in the fifth. Sides retired nine straight over that stretch, and his big, swooping curve made the Falcons look silly on a lot of swings.

“Julian Sides settled down and started mixing it up on us a little bit,”West head coach Chris Cauble said. “He did a good job adjusting to what the umpire was calling. He did a better job adjusting than we did.”

An often small and varied strike zone gave fans from both teams fits for much of the game. The Mustangs only managed five hits, but West pitching surrendered seven walks and hit three batters to fuel several rallies.

Falcon starter Drew Callicutt left in the first inning without recording an out. Cal Hayes Jr. walked, Drew Davis and Brian Hatley singled and Hayes scored on an error on a play at the plate. When Callicutt hit Bobby Clester with a pitch, Cauble called on Josh Overcash to end the threat.

Nick Lefko drew a bases-loaded walk and Brett Peiffer scored on a wild pitch for a 4-1 lead.

“That took the wind out for some of us. I saw a couple of the boys coming off the field shaking their heads,”Hampton said. “I felt bad, but I knew we had a lot of time to come back.”

As Sides settled in on the mound, East’s offense tried to extend the lead. But the Mustangs stranded two runners in the second inning and three more in the third after scoring just one run after three walks and a hit batter.

Three West errors and a walk led to the Mustangs’ sixth run in the fifth inning.

East’s defense sparkled, as always. Sides surrendered a leadoff walk in the sixth inning and had a runner on third with two outs when Brooks sent a sharp grounder up the middle. Hayes raced over from shortstop and stretched out to make the play. The ball bounced off his glove to second baseman Justin Miller, who threw out Brooks by a step at first.

Hayes then ended the game in the seventh by turning another groundball up the middle into an easy double play.

“That play was ESPN right there,”said Sides, who corralled Miller and Hayes for a hug/high five after their routine 6-4-3 to end the sixth. “That was a great play. It saved me a hit.”