GRANITEQUARRY — The beginning was the end in Friday’s 3A South Piedmont Conference baseball showdown.
East Rowan coach Jeff Safrit called the Mustangs’ bottom of the first the best inning his team’s put together in two seasons. West Rowan coach Chris Cauble wanted to call that same inning all kinds of colorful adjectives, but finally settled for “very shaky.”
While a huge throng was still filing in and searching for good seats at a packed Staton Field, East sent a dozen hitters to the plate in that frantic first. The Mustangs put up six runs against Jared Barnette, which is the number of runs the West ace generally surrenders in a month. Barnette, who entered the game with an ERA under 2.00, retired only two batters.
East went on to cruise 7-3.
“We came out fired up. We wanted to be very aggressive and hit the first fastball,” said East’s Julian Sides who pitched a complete game and also contributed an RBI-single to keep that huge inning rolling along.
Safrit said the key to the big frame was leadoff man Cal Hayes Jr. “Cal took a pretty good curve ball to right field for a base hit.” he said. “That got it started.”
Drew Davis followed with a single, one of his two hits in the inning, then Spencer Steedley delivered a two-run double, the game’s only extra-base hit. Nick Lefko and Adam Cornelius followed with bunts that their wheels turned into hits.
From there, things snowballed into a West nightmare, with Sides’ looping hit, a walk to Justin Miller, a couple of errors and a pair of wild pitches. Cory Ruff relieved Barnette and got the final out, but the damage was done.
“We executed some things,” said Safrit. “And then a few things bounced our way. Finally. For a long time, nothing went would go our way this season.”
But the Mustangs hung in there and now — at last — they’ve caught up to the pack.
At one point, East was 0-5 in the SPC. Now, it’s 6-6, the same record as West (10-6 overall) and A.L. Brown. Sun Valley (7-6), Piedmont (7-6) and Northwest Cabarrus (4-6) make it six teams with six losses apiece in a fairly incredible race for third behind Central Cabarrus (13-2) and Harding (7-4).
When Sides went out to the mound for the second inning, he had to be thinking that he’d been transported to an alternate universe. A six-run lead? Come on, now. Sides (2-3) had been on the undeserving losing end of a 2-1 game against Central and a 3-0 game with West (Barnette pitched a shutout) in earlier starts.
“It was so frustrating, because I went 6-0 last season, but I hadn’t been able to grasp hold of any wins this year,” Sides said.
But Sides kept a firm grip on this one. He wasn’t at his sharpest, but walked only one and was able to get the big outs every time West tried to creep back.
Still, Safrit just about pulled Sides in the fourth after Ruff singled home West’s first two runs.
“I didn’t think Julian was concentrating enough,” said Safrit. “I went out there with the intention of taking him out. He talked me out of it.”
“I said, ‘No, please leave me in. I’ll bear down, I’ll concentrate,’ ” explained Sides.
Safrit nodded and Sides responded. He got a double-play ball right back to the mound to end the fourth, then yielded only a single unearned run over the final three frames.
West’s awful start ruined a great game by Ruff, who went 3-for-3 at the plate and allowed only one East hit after that first-inning explosion.
“It was a positive that guys didn’t drop their heads,” said Cauble. “We could have fallen apart, yet we didn’t give up. But East is just too good a team to spot six runs.”
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NOTES:Cauble said it might have been a “bad call” on his part to start Barnette, who had pitched a two-hitter on Monday. “But he’s the guy we ride in the big games,” he said. ... Barnette didn’t throw many pitches, so he will likely come right back on Tuesday. ... Safrit said it had been a grueling week for both teams. Both had three games. West had three road games, including two long trips to Piedmont and Harding. “That’s brutal punishment,” said Safrit. “Ijust hope we both can make the playoffs.”
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