CONCORD — Central Cabarrus baseball coach Bryan Tyson says when his team goes up against East Rowan it’s just like the Blue Devils and Tar Heels getting after it in college basketball.
Central pitcher Thomas Wilson disagrees. Wilson says it’s a whole lot bigger than that silly hoops stuff.
“The reason we come to practice and work hard every day is East Rowan,” said Wilson, a tenacious left-hander who was responsible for all those radar guns lining the fence at the Central field on Tuesday afternoon. “East is always the biggest rivalry. East games are the ones you really look forward to.”
Tyson and Wilson are wearing smiles as big as Granite Quarry today, because Central knocked off East 2-1, grabbing the favorite’s role in the 3A South Piedmont Conference race. At least until the teams meet again at Staton Field next month.
As expected, the contest went right down to the final pitch. Brandon Queen’s line single to left with two outs in the seventh fell safely in front of a diving Chad Sansbury, scoring Todd Greene from second for a walk-off victory.
“I say it every year, but it seems crazy to be playing East this early,” drawled Tyson. “I mean, it’s heavyweights going at it. We’re the two perennial powers (in the SPC). They take their best shot and we take ours.”
Both teams got solid pitching. Wilson fanned eight and was as bad as he wanted to be whenever the Mustangs had runners in scoring position. East managed three hits, but only one of them, Adam Cornelius’ run-scoring rope in the fourth, left the infield.
East’s junior lefty Julian Sides matched Wilson pitch for pitch until the seventh. Sides fanned only one batter but got help from a Mustang defense that was remarkably efficient for February. The Mustangs produced two double plays, one a conventional 4-6-3, the other when first baseman Spencer Steedley plucked Goose Fregosi’s missile out of the air with two runners on in the fifth. Then there was right fielder Nick Lefko, who made running, sliding catches to frustrate Central hitters all day.
It was a game of missed opportunities for East.
The Mustangs loaded the bases in the second on two walks and Justin Miller’s hit to deep short, but Wilson struck out Sansbury to escape.
East scored first on Cornelius’ hit, then had a chance to bust the game open in the fifth. But after hitting Cal Hayes Jr. and walking Drew Davis and Nick Lefko to fill the bases with two outs, Wilson whiffed Josh Harbinson.
Central broke through against Sides in the bottom of the inning when Greene blooped a single, stole second, moved to third on Matt Baker’s grounder to the right side and scored on Queen’s polite single to right, which plopped in front of an onrushing Lefko.
The missed scoring chance that will haunt the Mustangs for weeks came in the top of the seventh, with the score still tied at 1. Hayes led off and bounced to third, but his speed forced a hurried throw that pulled first baseman Fregosi off the bag. Hayes then swiped second and Steedley’s perfect bunt moved him to third. The next batter was Drew Davis, who was exactly the guy East coach Jeff Safrit wanted up there in a clutch situation and exactly the guy Tyson (who was bedeviled by Davis during his years as Concord American Legion coach) didn’t want to see.
“The Davis kid is a heck of a hitter,” said Tyson. “But we pitched to him. I guess it was a gut instinct.”
Davis popped up to first, as Safrit danced an unhappy jig in the third base coaching box. Then Lefko grounded sharply to shortstop Brian York and was thrown out by a half-step to end the inning.
“We just didn’t get the big hit,” said Safrit, “which is the same way we started last season. I hope we’re not going through that again. I can’t take these 2-1s and 3-2s. Someone’s got to step up. You can’t beat an average team with one run.”
And Central, ranked No. 2 in the state in 3A by Baseball America, isn’t exactly average.
Central had the momentum as it came in for its half of the seventh. With one out, Greene tagged a double. Baker bounced back to Sides for the second out, but then Queen came through, making Wilson a winner and Sides, a hard-luck loser.
“We should have won,” said Safrit. “We were the ones with nothing to lose, but we played tighter than they did. We didn’t do the little things that make the difference in a game like this.”
“It was huge,” said Tyson. “If we’d lost this one at home, we’d of been sitting behind the ol’ 8-ball right off the bat.”
Instead the Vikings are sitting pretty.
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NOTES:East beat Central three times last season, including an 8-7 win in the SPC Tournament game. ... The loss was the 100th of Safrit’s illustrious career. ... “Both teams will heat up with the bats as it gets warmer,” Tyson predicted. “But, then, I don’t think many people thought this one was going to be 10-9.” ... Central beat Forest Hills 10-0 on Monday, so it’s 2-0 overall. ... Baseball America rates Hayes the No. 7 junior prospect in the state, while Davis is No. 19.
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