BY ED DUPREE
SALISBURY POST

WINSTON-SALEM — South Rowan took its bid for a share of the Central Piedmont Conference title down to the final hour before falling to Mount Tabor 8-4 Friday.

Mount Tabor’s Spartans won their third straight game in three days and captured the championship by a one-game margin over Davie County and West Forsyth.

Coach Linn Williams’ determined South club had kept its hopes for a four-way tie for first place alive with a 6-3 victory over Davie County at home on Thursday night.

The Raiders were in excellent shape early, leading 4-1 behind right-hander Tim Cook through 2 1/2 innings. Then the Spartans took over.

Mount Tabor’s victory made it 6-2 in the CPC and 18-5 overall. Davie and West Forsyth tied for second at 5-3, followed by South at 4-4. R.J. Reynolds finished last at 0-8.

Now South, 9-13 overall, will be going after its third win over R.J. Reynolds when the two teams meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the opening game of the CPC Tournament at Rick Park in Mocksville.

The South-Reynolds winner will take on top-seeded Mount Tabor at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the semifinals, following a 5 o’clock contest between Davie and West Forsyth. The championship game will be played at 7 p.m. Thursday.

South has to win the tournament to capture one of the CPC’s three berths in the state 4A playoffs.

“We have to win three,” said Williams. “Obviously, we’re disappointed we didn’t win a conference championship. We feel confident. We think we’ve got enough pitching to win three. We’ve played well in one tournament this year (second place in the Cliff Peeler Baseball Classic during the Easter break.

Williams is impressed with Mount Tabor, which beat South 8-5 in the first meeting on April 6.

“They’re a scrappy bunch,” said South’s Williams of Mount Tabor. “Their best pitcher (Brian Bach) is hurt (fractured thumb), and they had to play three games this week without their best pitcher. They’ve done a good job this week capturing first place.”

Bach has already signed with Wake Forest University.

Mount Tabor was 3-2 in the league before beating West Forsyth, R.J. Reynolds and South on consecutive days.

“We knew we had to win all of them to have a shot,” said coach Trey Massie. “We stepped up and played pretty well tonight.”

Concerning the balance of the top four teams, he said, “Everybody has at least one pitcher who can beat anybody. That’s what makes it so fun. Everybody’s even, everybody can hit the ball, and you never know what you are going to get from your 2, 3 and 4 pitchers. We just hope we’re catching the right breaks. That’s the way we go about it each day.”

Mount Tabor’s two league losses were at home — to West Forsyth 8-5 and to Davie 6-5.

The Raiders took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on singles by Ronnie Shore, Greg Deal and Derrick Morrison plus an outfield error.

Andrew Frank singled home the Spartans’ first run in the last of the first.

South added an unearned run in the second, then a single by Dan Hoffman and a double by Morrison pushed the lead to 4-1 in the fourth.

Mount Tabor tied it up with two runs in the fourth, when Bach’s double was the big hit. Jared Wingler relieved starter Cook during the inning.

The Spartans added an earned run in the fourth and two more in the fifth, when the Raiders made two errors. The home team tacked on two insurance runs in the sixth of the third South hurler, Mike Davis.

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NOTES: Justin Parker went 3-for-4 to lead the Spartans’ nine-hit attack. ...Joe Leonard of Mount Tabor drove in three runs with a double and infield groundout. ... Morrison was 3-for-3 with two RBIs for the Raiders, while Hoffman was 2-for-3. ... David Stroup, who pitched four scoreless innings in relief of starter John Hardy, got the win for the Spartans, upping his record to 6-3. ... The loss in relief was the first for South’s Davis after four wins.