SALISBURY — When you have teammates named Mitchem, Myers, Garcia and Shepherd, the spotlight is rarely yours alone.

But platoon player Lee Poteat deserved to be recognized after Rowan County shook off Hope Mills, 12-8, late Sunday night to become the last unbeaten team standing in the American Legion state tournament.

“Lee Poteat,” Rowan outfielder Kacey Otto decided at Newman Park, ” was the best man for that job.”

The job entrusted to Poteat, a left-fielder with a .300 batting average this summer, was to help nourish Rowan’s lead in a tense game that had more twists and turns than a New York cab ride. He delivered with his first triple — a two-out, two-run smash that put Rowan ahead, 11-8, in the top of the ninth inning.

“It was my biggest hit of the season,” said Poteat, a rising senior at West Rowan. “I’m just glad that it came when it did and helped our team out.”

Did it ever. With Rowan clinging to a precarious 9-8 lead, Hope Mills reliever Austin Warren retired the first two batters in the ninth. Then Jeremy Simpson, the No. 7 hitter in Rowan’s batting order, coaxed a walk on a 3-2 pitch. “Just trying to get on base,” Simpson said. “At the bottom of the order, that’s our job. We needed some more runs.”

Otto followed with a line-drive, first-pitch single into center field, putting two runners aboard. “Anything up I was going to leave alone,” he said. “But that one was middle-away.”

It set the stage for Poteat, who had gone 0-for-3 with a sacrifice bunt in his first four plate appearances. He took a ball from Warren, then another — and then whipped a sharp groundball that sped past Hope Mills first baseman Trey Davis and disappeared into the right-field corner. Simpson and Otto scored easily and a sliding Poteat beat outfielder Howard Smith’s relay to third base.

“It was very close, but it was a fair ball,” said Otto, who had a close-range look. “He smoked it right down the line. That’s what he does. He gets called on in some situations and he makes things happen.”

Simpson related a telling, mid-game conversation he had with Poteat. “Earlier in the game he was joking that he was going to start bunting,” he said. “He was tired of grounding out to second base and starting to get mad. He wound up hitting it to the only place on this field where it couldn’t be caught.”

That put a smile on Poteat’s face. “I was late, but I put as much a swing on it as I could,” he said afterward. “I’m glad it got through. It showed that no one gets left out here.”