ASHEBORO — Jared Barnette wasn’t about to let a bad knee keep him out of a big baseball game.
The senior right-hander pitched West Rowan’s Falcons to a 3-1 victory over Asheboro here Tuesday night in the first round of the state 3A playoffs, despite re-injuring his knee in the fourth inning.
Coach Chris Cauble’s Falcons (16-10) earned a second-round home game against South Point (21-7) at 7 p.m. Friday at West. South Point beat East Rowan 4-3 at East last night.
Barnette, who finished with a five-hitter and allowed no earned runs, lay on the ground in pain down the right-field foul line after beating out a bunt toward third base. West held a 1-0 lead, but it didn’t look good for the Falcons without their ace pitcher.
“I thought I was going to have to pull him out after he drag bunted and beat the throw out,” said Cauble. “The competitor he is, he wouldn’t let me take him out. That wasn’t even in his mind.”
Barnette rose to his feet after several minutes.
“He got up when we were down there, and he said, ‘I’m not done. This ain’t going to be my last baseball game.’ That’s kind of the character he’s had on the football field, and he’s brought it out here on the baseball field,” said Cauble, West’s second-year head coach. Barnette missed one football game with the injury (cartilage damage) during the 2000 season.
Barnette was replaced by courtesy runner David Terry, but was back on the mound in the bottom of the fourth.
“Right before I hit the bag, it went out on me,” said Barnette. “That’s the same one I hurt in football. It goes out on me every now and then.I guess it was a little worse this time.”
He said the knee forced him to pitch differently, but he still allowed only three hits the rest of the way while upping his record to 8-4.
“My curveball was working good tonight. When I hurt my knee, I just didn’t have the good stuff after that. I had to keep the ball down and out where they wouldn’t get a swing on it and hit it hard,” he said.
“We don’t have anybody like Barnette in our conference (Tri-County),” said coach Jerry Walser of the Blue Comets(18-6). “We kind of suspected that, but we didn’t now that. Obviously, we found out.”
Walser, former head coach at Davie County, added, “I saw him play football two or three times. I knew what kind of winner he was, whether he was a baseball player or not. I knew he was going to be a great competitor. He obviously lived up to his billing.”
Walser was on the Davie football coaching staff with Scott Young, who is now West’s head football coach, and he’s watched some of West’s games.
As for Barnette’s injury, Walser said, “When he and Chris walked out there, I said, ‘Chris, this guy’s hurt.’ Obviously, we wouldn’t want that. It says something about his character that he would go out there and finish it.”
Barnette, who also went 3-for-3 with a double, a run batted in and a run, was elated with the victory.
“We were all just wanting to come out and play our game and have fun. We just didn’t want it to be our last one.I’ve got to give credit to everybody on the team. They backed me up 110 percent and they made the plays for me,” said Barnette, calling it his biggest pitching win.
“It’s do or die now, so I just want to go as far as I can. It’s my last year,” he added.
West had nine hits against Asheboro right-hander Lance Cole with Barnette, Clay Everson (2-for-3) and leadoff man Ryan Schenk (2-for-4) accounting for seven of them.
Everson, with the score tied at 1-all, led off the fifth with a single to left, moved up to second on Patrick Adams’ sacrifice and scored the tie-breaker run on Schenk’s double to the gap in right-center.
“I’m coming around a little bit now (at the) end of the season. I think I’ve been hitting the ball pretty good. My team’s hitting the ball good as a team,” said shortstop Everson, who committed West’s only error in the fourth, when Asheboro got its unearned run.
“I thought about it a little bit, but I shook it off and went up to the plate and got it out of my head,” added Everson, who singled home an insurance run in the sixth.
“Clay has hit above .350 the whole year. It’s a quiet .350,” said Cauble. “He hasn’t really hit the ball on the nose, but he’s hit it good enough to get it through the holes, and it’s paid off for us.”
Schenk scored West’s first run when he singled up the middle, stole second and came home on Barnette’s double. Then he doubled in what proved to be the winning run.
“I hadn’t been hitting the ball too well this season, and Coach moved me back up to leadoff for tonight’s game,” said Schenk.
He led off 11 of West’s first 16 games, but was moved down in the order when he slumped.
“He (Cauble) moved me back up to No. 1 tonight, and I was glad to get some hits. When he read the lineup out, I was just so excited. I was back up to No. 1. I was seeing the ball well, and I got some good hits at key times,” said Schenk.
“He put so much pressure on himself because he had a real good year last year, hitting above .300 for us,” said his coach. “He was hitting the ball early, but right at people, then he started pressing. ... The last two weeks, he’s really came out and taken that senior leadership role and started swinging the bat a little bit better. He did a great job responding to being put back in the No. 1 spot.”
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Contact Ed Dupree at 704-797-4258 or edupree@salisburypost.com
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