A series of ‘what ifs’

A week-long series of what-might-have-beens ended with a night full of them for Rowan County.

It would be easy to credit Asheboro’s 7-6 win to Bobby Parnell’s ninth-inning error and Spencer Steedley’s wild pitch.

Too easy, because too much went wrong for Rowan County throughout the Area III Championship series, which Asheboro wrapped up in Game 7 Thursday night at Newman Park.

Blame it on the rain that fell in Game 1 — had Aaron Rimer not slipped getting out of the batter’s box, he beats out an infield single and Cal Hayes Jr. scores the tying run in the bottom of the ninth.

Blame a cascade of errors from the usually reliable Rowan defense — 21 in the seven games that led to 16 unearned runs.

Blame a remarkable Asheboro defense that also committed 21 errors for 13 unearned runs, yet turned five clutch double plays and threw out several Rowan runners on the basepaths when it mattered most.

Or blame the key culprit Thursday night — a failure to bring runners home. Rowan stranded 16 on the base paths in Game 7, including nine in scoring position, to total 69 runners left on in the series.

Thursday night’s story was typical. As in Games 1 and 2, Rowan rallied in its final at-bat but couldn’t push the tying or go-ahead runs across.

Asheboro shortstop Brett Andrews, who made the heroic game-ending play in the opener, also reached a hot grounder off Jimbo Davis’ bat and raced to tag second just ahead of Cal Hayes Jr. for the final out.

“We rallied in the bottom of the ninth and came up short again,”Davis said. “It just goes to show that we could’ve won four games.”

That fact wasn’t lost on Asheboro head coach Tony McKee.

“Except for maybe two games in this series, the other five games were anybody’s,”he said. “It’s unfortunate they lost the game the way they did, but it’s like I told my kids after we lost a game (to South Rowan) on a 10th-inning homer — if we’d have done this or done that, we wouldn’t have been in the 10th inning.”

Rowan’s wish list would be awfully long. Nick Lefko had a rocket speared by second baseman Adam Elliot in the second inning that prevented extra damage from being done in the three-run frame.

Rowan lost two runs in the bottom of the third when Cory Ruff, batting in the No. 9 spot with two on and two out, smoked a liner bound for the right-field corner. But first baseman Michael Stefanacci, holding the runner on at first, was perfectly positioned to reach up and snag it for a hard third out instead.

The same scenario played itself out time and again — Rowan got runners on, Pitt escaped unscathed, or with nominal damage.

“We just couldn’t get the key hit,”Rowan head coach Jim Gantt said. “We had our chances, we just didn’t get it done, plain and simple.”

Thanks to the missed opportunities, Asheboro stood poised to win the game in the ninth inning on a walk, throwing error and a two-out, 2-2 wild pitch on a curve in the dirt.

“All the chances we had early, all the chances we had in Game 4 with all those errors, Game 1 with 17 strikeouts and five errors … ”Gantt said, the thought trailing off. “We did a good job battling back to get to this point.”

Because Rowan didn’t lose in five games, because Gantt’s team rallied to force a Game 7, he had a simple message for his players before they left Newman Park.

“I told them to walk out of here with their heads up. They gave everything they had and now we’ll get ready for the state tournament,”he said of next week’s event in Garner. “You don’t know what might happen down there.”

Rowan could even win the state crown — and blame it on getting all the bugs out of its system against Asheboro.

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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com .