The Mustangs needed every one of the 13 hits they collected against Central Cabarrus in Thursday’s SPC championship game at Staton Field.

“That may be as good as we’ve hit the ball all year,” coach Jeff Safrit said after East held on for an 8-7 win. “The balls we hit tonight were hard hits.”

Seven of them went for extra bases, including junior Bobby Clester’s rainbow home run into the center-field woods that capped a four-run first inning. Teammate Aaron Safrit had two of the Mustangs’ six doubles while Brett Peiffer went 3-for-4 with two RBIs.

“We seem to be seeing the ball real well,” Clester said after boosting his batting average to .300. “When you see it like we did tonight, it’s a lot easier to hit.”

Still, it was a game that left much to be desired. Pitching and defense, the staples that have carried East (23-4) to a No. 1 seed in next week’s state 3A playoffs, were missing in action. The Mustangs committed three errors and winning pitcher Jeremy Teague (7-1) was scorched for seven runs and 12 hits in 52

“He pitched good when he got ahead of hitters,” said East catcher Drew Davis. “When he fell behind he had to groove the fastball and they ripped it.”

Central (16-7-1), a no. 2 seed in the state tournament, ripped 11 singles against the senior right-hander. Ten of them came in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, when East nearly squandered an early 7-1 lead.

“These guys never quit,” said Central coach Bryan Tyson. “We talked about just pecking away and pecking away because there was a still a long way to go. We had many chances to win the ballgame, but just didn’t get the clutch hit.”

The visitors stranded 10 baserunners and left them loaded in both the first and sixth innings. In the first, Teague induced three groundouts to escape after yielding a run-scoring hit to Brian Cairns. Then in the sixth, with the Mustangs clinging to a one-run lead, relief pitcher Drew Lyerly retired Central’s Josh Doughty on a two-out smash back to the box.

Sandwiched between those two dramatic moments was the sound of East feasting on three Central pitchers. Loser Jamie Tucker (2-1) was tagged most often, including Clester’s 390-foot blast that soared just left of the center-field flag pole.

“He’s a big strong kid who actually drove it the other way,” said Tyson, whose team failed to beat East in three tries this spring. “That just shows how strong he is.”

East extended its lead to 5-1 when Peiffer grounded a run-scoring single through the left side in the last of the second. An inning later, Cal Hayes Jr. and Davis knocked in runs against reliever Josh Fregosi, giving the Mustangs a six-run lead.

But this was not to be another of East’s thanks-for-coming, drive-home-safely wipeouts. In fact, it took some seventh-inning heroics by Lyerly to seal the deal. Relying on a late-breaking slider, the senior right-hander earned a save by consecutively fanning Pat Newsome, Chris Hartsell and Matt Baker to close it out.

“My slider was breaking very well,” said Lyerly. “After a while they started looking for it all the time, and that’s when I snuck the fastball by them.”

Safrit, as usual, seemed more focused on the road ahead than the one in the rearview. “This thing’s over,” he said. “We break the year into three seasons — we have a regular season, the conference tournament and the state playoffs. We’ve won the first two. Now we go after the other one.”