Thursday night was one of them. The Mustangs looked like 3A state championship material in a 10-0 dismantling of North Rowan at Staton Field.

East was favored, but few expected anything like this. The flawless Mustangs (12-7) pounded out a homer, a triple and two doubles and didn’t make an error or surrender a walk in a five-inning, 10-run rule romp.

You know it’s a bad night when you play the whole game and only get to bat once. That’s what happened to North’s No. 9 hitter, Ranon Barber. He grounded out in the third and never got another shot, because East hurler Spencer Steedley (2-1) twirled a breezy two-hitter and faced only 17 batters. Steedley fanned eight of them. The only ball hit hard off the sophomore was Aaron Rimer’s game-opening single.

North coach Bill Kesler agreed his guys had a terrible night. Boy, did he ever.

“That was about as sorry an effort as I’ve seen between the lines,” said the veteran skipper, who took the Cavs to the 2A state title series last spring. “We didn’t look like we wanted to play. I have no idea why.

“We couldn’t even throw a fastball for a strike. We didn’t have a good cut at a pitch all night and our defense wasn’t any good. We play like this Tuesday at East Davidson (the Cavs can tie for the Central Carolina Conference title if they win that one) and we’ll get beat 10-0 again. We had nothing — nothing.”

The Mustangs, on the other hand, had everything.

Superb, knee-high pitching by Steedley. A first-inning bomb by Drew Davis. Two doubles and three RBIs by Nick Lefko. A run scored or an RBI out of the first eight spots in the lineup.

“We played a pretty solid game,” said East head coach Jeff Safrit. “We just try to get a little better every time we go out there.”

The good news for North (13-5) is that exactly the same thing happened last spring in Granite Quarry. North ace Brandon Doby had a tough night and East’s Julian Sides blanked the Cavs 10-0 with a six-inning one-hitter. But North pulled it together after that disaster to win 14 of its next 15.

Kesler can only hope history repeats.

Meanwhile, East, which started 2-5, has won 10 of 12 and looks sharp.

Everyone with an “E” on his cap says things turned around about the time the quiet Davis, the junior catcher, realized hitting line drives and throwing out baserunners wasn’t enough. That’s when he started leading.

“Drew’s always hit, but I told him he had to be a leader if we were going to be the team we wanted to be,” said Safrit. “Being the catcher, he had to be more verbal. Drew’s taken that and he’s gone with it.”

“Drew is our leader on the field now,” confirmed Mustang assistant Derry Steedley. “He’s smart. He knows the game. His future is bright.”

Coach Steedley usually sits on pins and needles when his son’s on the mound, but last night the young lefty and the pitch-calling Davis were working in such perfect harmony that the coaching staff settled back and relaxed.

“Sometimes teams will sit on my fastball,” said Steedley, who gave up two first-inning homers to Harding in a recent Staton start. “This time I had my curveball working pretty good.”

“Spence was in and out, hit all his spots,” said Davis. “North’s a solid team, but he had them off balance.”

Davis set the tone when he greeted Doby with a first-inning missile over the left-field fence.

“I concentrate on hitting the ball the other way so people think of me as an opposite-field hitter,” said Davis. “But when I’m ahead in the count, I look for a fastball to drive. I got ahead, got a fastball and it went out.”

Bobby Parnell’s triple to right-center keyed a two-run second for a 3-0 lead.

The count went to 4-0 in the third when Lefko doubled home Davis. Lefko scored on a throwing error for 5-0.

The wheels came off for the Cavs in East’s five-run fourth. Lefko had a two-run double and Adam Cornelius an RBI single, but most of the damage was done by North gifts — two walks, two errors and a balk. Almost before anyone realized it, East had 10 runs on the board.

North went quietly in the fifth, and fans, who had packed into the bleachers expecting an entertaining scrap, were sent home in time to see their favorite TV shows.

“I think we doubted ourselves early this season,” said the older Steedley. “When our guys go on the field now, you can see a difference. They expect to win.”

And if they play like this, they can expect to win quite a few more.

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