Mocksville’s American Legion baseball team refused to take ‘No’ for an answer Thursday night.
Post 174 withstood a two-hour rain delay and some reckless pitching to win a game it absolutely had to, edging Rowan County 9-8 at Newman Park.
“We needed to get back in this series,” infielder Ricky Bentley said after Mocksville (17-12) cut its deficit in the second-round showdown to two-games-to-one. “We lost two close ones and had to battle back to get this one.”
It was a battle all right. An ugly one. Mocksville pitchers issued 10 walks, uncorked seven wild pitches and hit a pair of batters. The visitors managed only five hits against a trio of Rowan pitchers but somehow squeezed lemonade from this lemon of a game.
“I don’t have any words for it,” said winning pitcher Andrew Daywalt. “I guess we just got lucky and got the breaks at the right time.”
Rowan (26-3), which had its 12-game winning streak snapped, committed six errors and yielded eight unearned runs in a very atypical showing.
“That was just a sloppy game, period,” said coach Jim Gantt. “Not to take anything away from Mocksville. They made plays when they had to. They got big hits after we made mistakes. But we just didn’t play well at all. We made all those errors and still had a chance to win it at the end. We didn’t deserve to be in the game.”
For Mocksville, this game was a gut check with a capital G. “We knew we had to win,” coach Mike Lovelace said shortly after the midnight finish. “If we didn’t win tonight we were looking at a very hard task — coming back from 3-0. We were fortunate to get this one. Our guys battled and battled and found a way to get it done.”
Rowan was the better-looking team through five innings. The locals built a 3-0 lead and were riding the golden left arm of pitcher Spencer Steedley, who carried a no-hitter into the top of the fifth inning.
Then came the sixth, when Mocksville sent 12 batters to the plate and scored eight runs — seven of them unearned — to assume control of the game.
“We just lost our focus, our concentration,” said Gantt. “We did so many things wrong. It would be tough to stand here and list all of them.”
Most costly was a dropped fly ball by Rowan right-fielder Aaron Rimer, a two-out miscue that allowed Mocksville to draw within 3-2. Moments later Bentley stroked a two-run double to the wall in right-center to put the guests ahead. After Casey Stanley was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, teammate Willie Infante whipped a two-run single to right for a 7-3 Mocksville advantage. Steedley was mercifully replaced by right-hander Daniel Cauble, who promptly balked home Mocksville’s eighth run of the inning.
“They made a lot of errors and we took advantage of them to score eight runs that inning,” said Lovelace. “But I knew right then that eight runs wasn’t going to win this baseball game. I knew they had a lot more heart and they were going to battle and play hard for every out.”
Rowan did just that in the last of the sixth, scoring three times to pull withing 8-6. Then in the seventh Cal Hayes produced a two-out, run-scoring single up the middle to make it 8-7.
The teams traded runs in the eighth — Mocksville scoring on an error and Rowan answering with Nick Lefko’s sacrifice fly. Rowan’s final charge up the hill was repelled in the ninth when Cory Ruff drew a leadoff walk against Mocksville reliever Lonnie Barnes but never advanced.
“This is a tough place to win a game,” Daywalt said, surveying the Newman faithful. “We’ll play a little tougher at home (tonight). Who knows? Maybe this will turn the series around.”
Though disappointed, Gantt made one important observation. “We’re still ahead,” he said. “We may have played a bad game, but tomorrow’s another day. And we’ll be back.”
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