BY ED DUPREE
SALISBURY POST

SPENCER — North Rowan won its 2A Central Carolina Conference baseball opener over Salisbury 14-6 Tuesday afternoon, but coach Bill Kesler wasn’t all that pleased.

“That’s probably the worst baseball game we’ve played this year,” said the veteran North coach. “We played really well the last game over at Davie (5-3 victory on Friday). We had to to win.”

North improved to 3-2 overall. Salisbury dropped to 0-3 overall and 0-1 in the CCC.

“We came out today, and we were flat from the start,” said Kesler. “We didn’t have our helmets here. We couldn’t find cups to get water. It just kind of stayed that way for the whole game pretty much.”

The Cavaliers, using borrowed batting helmets from Salisbury, had 10 hits, including two each by Aaron Rimer, Tad Ogg and Keith Cauble. Rimer had two runs batted in. Cauble had only one RBI, but almost got four with a shot to left field with the bases loaded in the second.

“We had some hits. Cauble: Probably any other day, his ball would have been out. The wind blew it back in. It was a real long single. (Aaron) Corby hit the ball well early,” said Kesler.

Right-hander Brandon Doby (2-1) was the starting and winning pitcher for North, working the first five innings. He allowed only three hits, no earned runs, walked one and struck out nine. However, he also threw two wild pitches and hit three batters.

“It wasn’t the best he’s thrown. He was having a little trouble locating his fastball,” said Kesler. “He could have very easily had a shutout or a one-run game if we had caught the ball behind him, even though he wasn’t on the top of his game.”

Salisbury, which had lost earlier games to South Rowan and Concord, hung with the Hornets through four innings, trailing only 9-5. Then North struck for four runs in the fifth, aided by a wild pitch by Salisbury starter Tommy Ludwig and an infield error.

The Hornets had five errors, leading to eight unearned runs.

“I think that if we learn to catch the ball, that if we can put the ball in play off of Doby and score runs off of Doby, that we can win some ballgames,” said first-year coach Scott Maddox.

“We’re learning; we’re getting better. Ludwig pitched a good game. He didn’t get any help,” he added.

“We’re making progress. A game like today, you have to build on. You never like to lose, but I think if you go out and improve each game, you’ve got to be happy with that and try to build on it.”