GRANITEQUARRY — Like a triangle, East Rowan junior Julian Sides has three sides.
There’s pitching, there’s defense, there’s offense.
On the mound, Sides has won three and saved three for a Mustang team that’s crawled all the way back from the brink of extinction to the brink of a 3A state playoff spot.
In the field, Sides always flashes the best leather of any first baseman in the county.
And in the batter’s box on Monday night, Sides delivered one of the biggest blows of his life. The lefty’s two-run double rallied East to a critical 3-2 South Piedmont Conference win over Northwest Cabarrus.
Sides’ sturdy stroke was a side of him we haven’t seen often. He was batting just .216 with six RBIs at game-time. That’s why East coach Jeff Safrit juggled two different lineup cards right up to the national anthem. Sides hadn’t hit well in pregame practice, but Safrit finally plugged his name into the No. 8 spot in the order, anyway.
“Sides has struggled a good bit of the year, but I decided to go with his defense at first base,” Safrit explained.
Safrit got that, plus a nice little bonus in the fourth inning.
Northwest pitcher Ryan Woodham carried a 2-1 lead into that decisive frame, but Adam Cornelius picked up a two-out single. Then a Trojan error extended the inning and gave Sides his chance.
“(East pitcher Jeremy) Teague was yelling at me from the time I got to the on-deck circle,” said Sides. “He was hollering at me that I was going to get the big hit.”
Sides did — getting ahead in the count, then raking one to the right-center alley that Trojan center fielder Chris Florence had no chance to catch up with.
“It was just what we needed,” said Safrit, who windmilled the tying and go-ahead runs around the bases, despite an ailing back.
Besides Sides, the story for East (14-7, 9-6) was Teague, who against all odds, wound up going the distance. Teague performed a tense tapdance routine around four walks in the first three innings. He walked three in the second, but wriggled out with a 1-all tie. Teague went down 2-1 in the third on Florence’s double and Craig Waller’s sac fly.
But after a start shakier than the San Francisco Earthquake, Teague rediscovered that magical curveball he’s carried around in his bag of tricks for a month. Teague retired 13 straight Trojans in one stretch. Over the last four innings, he allowed no hits and no walks, while whiffing seven.
“I was throwing everything high early — just couldn’t get it down,” said Teague. “But once I found my groove, I was cruising out there. Then Julian got that big hit in the fourth. That changed the whole atmosphere in the dugout.”
Sides loosened up his potent left arm in the bullpen while East batted in the fifth, but Safrit kept his eggs in Teague’s basket. That decision paid off, even though fans slid toward the edge of their seats in the seventh after Teague nicked Reid Wilkinson with a two-out offering. But Brooks Little followed with a soft fly to left that was gathered in by belly-flopping shortstop Cal Hayes Jr. to end the game.
Hayes’ play was East’s fifth exceptional defensive effort. Right fielder Nick Lefko robbed extra bases in the first with a sprint toward the foul line, then made a headlong dive to take away another hit. Second baseman Justin Miller went a long way to flag down a foul pop and third baseman Bobby Parnell made a sprawling stab of a hot liner.
Northwest coach Joe Hubbard shook his head at that parade of Mustang web gems and at his team’s failure to pile up runs early when Teague’s struggles gave the Trojans (6-8 SPC) optimum opportunity.
“I can’t fault the way we played,” Hubbard said. “We came in here focused and we left everything out there. We sure couldn’t have asked any more out of Woodham. We made one mistake — that two-out error when we could have gotten our pitcher out of an inning. But that happens. That’s just one of those things.”
But right now you can’t give the Mustangs even one break. After losing their first five league games, they’ve won nine of 10 and will secure the No. 2 seed for the SPC Tournament if they win at Northwest on Friday.
“It’s been a long haul to get to right here,” sighed Safrit. “A real long haul.”
Today's News
