LANDIS — South Rowan’s young Raiders refuse to be counted out of the 4A Central Piedmont Conference baseball race.
Mike Davis’ solid relief pitching and a clutch hit by Ronnie Shore led the way as the Raiders upset Davie County 6-3 at the South stadium Thursday night.
Davie, ranked 12th among the state’s 4A teams by Baseball America, dropped into a tie for third place with South in the CPC.
Mount Tabor was in first place with a 4-2 record going into last night’s game with R.J. Reynolds (0-6), followed by West Forsyth at 5-3. Davie and South are each 4-3.
If South were to win at Mount Tabor at 4:30 p.m. today and Davie were to win at home at 7 p.m. against R.J. Reynolds, the league could wind up in a four-way tie for first — assuming Mount Tabor won last night.
Davis, a sophomore right-hander, got a big strikeout in the second inning after relieving southpaw starter Andrew Morgan with runners at second and third.He went on to pitch a three-hitter over 5 1/3 scoreless innings.
Shore, who grounded into a double play with the bases loaded in the fourth, came to bat again in the same situation in the sixth, drilling a single up the middle to break a 3-3 tie.
“I was just thinking, ‘Be aggressive.’ The count was 0-2. I just knew I had to hit it somewhere,” said the junior shortstop. “The time before it kind of got to me a little bit when I grounded out with the bases loaded. So, I just thought, ‘Put it in play and things will happen.’ Things did,” he added.
Davis, now 4-0, said of his solid pitching (no walks, four strikeouts), “I was on tonight.I felt pretty good. This was a big game for us. We knew we had to win this game to make it to the championship. Coach (Linn Williams) has been telling us all year we could beat these boys, and we beat them tonight.”
Davie, coached by Mike Herndon, has topped South 6-4 in a league game at Mocksville and 6-1 in the championship game of the Cliff Peeler Baseball Classic 10 days earlier.
“They were a team we were always scared of, because they swing the bats pretty well,” said Herndon.
Davis said the game was decided early, when the War Eagles failed to take advantage of four first-inning walks, then left two runners in scoring position after taking a 3-1 lead in the second.
“If you don’t take advantage of that, maybe you don’t deserve to win,” said Herndon, whose team is 17-5. “We had our opportunities to blow it wide open, and we just didn’t do that.”
Herndon noted the big difference in the teams’ records with South improving to 9-12.
“I don’t know if we came in here flat, or we overlooked them, or whatever. They played better than we did, and they deserved to win. We’re 17-5, and we might not be going to the playoffs,” he exclaimed.
Shore, a three-year starter, was elated.
“This is pretty big. This is probably the biggest we’ve had here in three years. This keeps our playoff hopes alive,” said Shore.
“We’ve been talking in practice the last couple of days about how we have to come out with intensity. I think everybody came out with intensity. We played great. We played like we wanted to win,” he added.
Williams said a victory over East Rowan in the semifinals of the Easter tourney gave his team a lot of confidence, even though South fell to Davie in the finals two nights later.
“We told team it was easy. They win the last two games and they’re conference champions.If you’re not motivated playing for conference championships, then you’re not going to be motivated,” said the first-year head coach.
“Mike Davis was outstanding,” said Williams. “After his first warm-up pitch, he felt good. He came in there in a big situation. We were down a couple of runs and they’ve got runners in scoring position. he gets the out. He pitched with confidence, pitched ahead in the count and did a great job.”
South fought back to tie the score with two runs in the fourth, when Chase Goodale’s single and Justin Pinyan’s bases-loaded walk drove in runs.
Then the Raiders loaded the bases against Davie starter Cody Wright in the sixth. Herndon went with shortstop Andrew Daywalt to relieve Wright.
Shore’s single up the middle made it 5-3, and Dan Hoffmann drove in an insurance run with a fielder’s-choice grounder.
“We’ve been struggling getting hits in that situation this year,” said Williams. “Ronnie had that situation earlier in the game and hit into a double play.I was happy he got another chance, and he came through. That’s going to help his confidence, and I think that will get him swinging the bat again.”
Williams said Davis, Jared Wingler, Tim Cook and Morgan would all be available to pitch against Mount Tabor today.
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