Those guys must have thought it was “Farther’s Day,” because they just kept hitting baseballs farther and farther.

Stanly (7-5 in league games) rapped out 20 hits and wrapped up an easy 16-1 Sunday stroll over South Rowan’s American Legion team in seven innings.

“Stanly hit good pitches and they hit bad pitches,” said South coach Allen Wilson. “One of their kids hit a pitch four inches off the ground for a double. They came out and swung the bats and we didn’t.”

South (3-10, 6-13) was not only defeated, it’s looking depleted with the playoffs starting Saturday.

Jeremy Teague, who would have gotten the starting mound call against Stanly, is no longer with the team for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, the double play combination of shortstop Ronnie Shore (injured left wrist) and second baseman Justin Miller (badly swollen right hand) is hurting. Shore missed his second straight game, although he hopes to return Tuesday. Miller tried to gut it out and lasted five innings, but is headed for X-rays to determine if he’s broken a bone in that wounded hand.

One thing’s for sure, Stanly zapped through South like an X-ray. Stanly had 10 hits in the first two innings and for all practical purposes the game was decided after Stanly’s six-run second. South starter Adam Earnhardt and reliever Brandon Hiatt got too many balls up and got little help from their defense.

Mostly, Stanly just hit and hit and hit until it got tired. The top three guys in the lineup — Derek “Spider” Williams, Chad “Catfish” Morris and Ryan “No Nickname” Thomas — produced a dozen hits and 10 RBIs.

Morris had the time of his life. The lanky South Stanly High youngster hit two homers, something he’d never done, even in coach-pitch.

Stanly coach Buster Thompson played ball with Morris’ grandfather. After “Catfish” whacked a three-run homer in the second inning, Thompson informed the kid he’d just accomplished something he never saw his grandpappy do.

“I told the boy, ‘I never saw your grandpa hit a home run,” said Thompson. “And he said, ‘Oh, really. Maybe, I’ll have to hit me another one.’ And then he went out and did it.”

Morris’ first homer in the second— just clearing the glove of left fielder Matt Morgan — made it 6-0. His second one in the fifth made it an 11-0 laugher.

“Catfish” says he knows when he got his nickname, but not why.

“I was in the ninth grade,” he explained. “I was in the outfield and Coach hit me one in practice and said, ‘Catch this one, Catfish.’ Don’t know why he said that. But since then, it’s stuck.”

Last night, “Catfish” stuck it to South. He had six RBIs, twice as many as South’s offense has accumulated in back-to-back lackluster efforts.

“The kid Mooresville threw at us Saturday (an 8-2 loss) was definitely a slump-starter,” Wilson said of soft-tossing (but effective) lefty Brent Frye. “That and the fact that we haven’t learned how to handle success.”

Nothing from this one will make the South highlight reel unless it’s Greg Deal’s sixth-inning double to left-center that scored Adam Cornelius and prevented a humiliating shutout. And maybe Ryan Wilson’s booming double in his only at-bat.

One play summed it up. In the fifth, South’s Matt Morgan spanked a rocket that made a direct hit on Stanly pitcher Chad Perry. Amazingly, the missile never struck the ground and was caught and turned into a double play.

“That sort of lets you know it’s not your night,” said Wilson.

Actually, South’s night was not unlike the one Stanly had Saturday at Mocksville when it got blitzed 14-3. Just shows how unpredictable baseball is.

Anyway, Morris felt it was high time for Stanly to fish or cut bait.

“We’d gotten our tails whupped three straight games,” he said. “It’s ’bout time we played some ball.”

NOTES:South is taking tonight off. … Perry went the distance for Stanly, scattering five hits. “He surprised me,” said Thompson. “He’d only thrown a few innings here and there, but we had no other way to go.” ... Stanly nipped South 4-2 when they met in Landis. ... Stanly’s Miller Morgan weighed in with a 3-for-5 effort, good for three RBIs.

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