BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

KANNAPOLIS — They’re in.

East Rowan’s Mustangs staggered and had to lunge across the finish line on Friday night, but successfully completed a marathon sprint that brought them from the back of the pack to a second-place finish in the 3A South Piedmont Conference and a guaranteed spot in the state playoffs.

East survived at Northwest Cabarrus 4-2 despite some uncharacteristically shaky defense in the late innings.

“Our kids have been playing under pressure for weeks,” sighed East coach Jeff Safrit. “It just caught up with us some at the very end tonight and we tightened up a little bit

“But these kids are winners. They’ve won a lot for a long time and they showed me they’re winners over the last month. It’s a tribute to them that they didn’t quit and they sure could have.

East was a very quittable 0-5 in the SPC at one point. It finished on a 10-1 spin through the league with the only loss in that span coming at the hands of league champ Central Cabarrus by a 2-1 score.

The key for East’s latest win was lefty pitcher Julian Sides (4-3), who was able to shut out the zaniness going on around him long enough to nail down the precious outs that pushed his team into the postseason. Sides finished with a two-hitter and walked just one.

“I wanted to pitch my best game,” said Sides. “It meant the playoffs for us.”

Sides did just that. In fact, all the Mustangs were perfect in the early going.

They were a machine.

East used little ball early, scoring in the first after a Cal Hayes Jr.-Drew Davis double steal and in the third on Nick Lefko’s perfect squeeze bunt.

The Mustangs (15-7, 10-6) added a fourth-inning run on an error and tacked on a fifth-inning tally on doubles by Spencer Steedley and Bobby Parnell.

Meanwhile, the East defense was flawless in the early going. Hayes made two diving plays at short and Chad Sansbury made a tumbling catch of a drive in left field.

But you could sense things turning when Trojan left fielder Reid Wilkinson turned Hayes’ bases-loaded-no-outs liner into a triple play.

Raymondo Brady was doubled off third and Adam Cornelius was caught off second, but it was Safrit who took the responsibility for the triple killing.

“I broke my cardinal rule in that situation,” said Safrit. “I was sure that ball was down, but it hung up there. That’s may fault, not Raymondo’s or Corny’s.”

East’s dominance was complete over the first five innings. The scoreboard said 4-0, but the game had the feel of 10-0.

“We had every opportunity to blow this one wide open,” said Safrit. “I was disappointed that we didn’t. We had some situations we should have gotten a lot more out of.”

But East didn’t. And the Trojans (11-12, 7-9) got some great defensive plays and some breaks — a sure two-run single off Sides’ bat in the fifth ticked relief pitcher’s Ryan Woodham’s glove and turned into a huge out.

“You know, they’d beat us in every way you can be beat for five innings,” said Northwest coach Joe Hubbard. “But then you look up there and you’re still in the game. And you’re thinking maybe it’s just your night.”

In the sixth, East looked fatigued, tight and shaky all at once.

“We looked unsure of ourselves on defense,” said Safrit. “We gave them six outs and that just doesn’t happen to us.”

The Mustangs made three errors, the last one when Sansbury, who’d made a circus catch earlier, lost Zeke Gurley’s two-out fly ball in the lights, as two Trojans crossed the plate to cut East’s lead in half.

“It happens,” said East right fielder Nick Lefko. “There’s a lot of dark spots on this field. It’s happened to me here.”