LEXINGTON— Only four baseball teams in the state will end their season with a victory.
All the teams not fortunate enough to claim a state title instead strive to close the year on a winning note.
For the6-15 Salisbury Hornets, that mission was accomplished Tuesday night. They had won four straight heading into the 2A Central Carolina Conference Tournament, and battled the league’s top team, East Davidson, in a tight 7-0 loss.
“I told them before the seventh inning to walk over there with their heads up,”Hornets first-year head coach Scott Maddox said. “From February to today, we’ve made a lot of improvement.”
Salisbury ended the regular season with wins over High Point Central and Lexington to earn the CCC’s No. 4 seed. That let the Hornets host a first-round game Monday, a 9-0 win over North Stanly that propelled them into the semifinals against East Davidson, perfect in the CCC.
Dan Tricarico’s Golden Eagles didn’t expect a pushover, and they didn’t get one.
“They played awfully well,”Tricarico said. “I’m really impressed with what they did today. That’s something to build on for next year.”
What Salisbury didn’t do well Tuesday night was hit the ball. East Davidson’s sneaky left-hander, Kent Ridge, didn’t throw hard, didn’t throw great breaking stuff. He struck out only two Hornets, yet was perfect for the first 11 batters he faced and didn’t allow a hit until Daniel Wallace’s single to open the fifth.
Ridge immediately erased Wallace with a double-play ball, which came in handy when pinch-hitter Ryan Lesley and left fielder Justin West followed with base hits, but an easy comebacker got East out of the inning.
For the game, Ridge surrendered just five hits and didn’t walk a batter. He ended the night with a lineout double-play to erase Salisbury’s final base runner.
“He’s got a lot of movement just on his normal fastball,”Tricarico said. “He’s around the plate and people want to rip it. He lets them put the ball in play and have the defense take care of it.”
Defensive miscues cost the Hornets and starter Richard Dailey. East scraped for two runs in the first inning off a sacrifice fly and an infield error.
The score remained 2-0 until the fourth, when the Golden Eagles put two runners on with one out. Jason Loflin squared around to bunt, but Dailey turned the sacrifice into a run with a high throw to first. Buddy Allen then delivered a long drive to left to score another run, and Ridge and Brett Hege made it 6-0 with consecutive hits.
East’s final run crossed in the sixth after another error.
“We lost to a good team,”Maddox said. “We made some mistakes, but we didn’t score, either, and they had at least one earned run.”
When the final out was called in the quick 90-minute affair, the Hornets gathered at the dugout and just as efficiently picked up their gear. Their were no last-game tears or sad expressions, just thanks for their coaches — and an eagerness to get back on the field next year.
“At the first of the year, I told them our success wouldn’t just be measured in wins and losses,”Maddox said. “We could’ve gotten 10-run-ruled and we didn’t. Earlier in the year this would’ve been 14-0.
“I’m looking forward to next year. We’ve got a lot of good, young players coming back.”
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