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 BY STEVE HANF
SALISBURY POST

But this was outrageous.

The Rowan County American Legion team, which had scored only 10 runs in its first three games – all home losses – came down hard on Statesville Monday night. Rowan pounded out three homers and 15 hits and waltzed to an 18-3 Southern Division of Area III win.

It took, oh, 30 seconds, for Rowan to get the point across that this game would be a bit different from its first three.

Paul Black opened the game with a single and stole second. Calvin Hayes then lined a pitch to left field. With none out and the heart of the Rowan order coming up, Black normally would have stopped at third on Hayes’ hit, but Rowan coach Jim DeHart – trying to snap his team out of its funk – waved Black plateward.

That decision put pressure on Statesville left fielder Eric Barnes, who in his haste to throw home, had the ball scoot right by him.

As Black scored, it was the speedy Hayes’s turn to churn around the bases.

‘‘I heard the coaches yelling at me to keep coming,’’ said Hayes. ‘‘They had talked to Paul and me about being more aggressive – that we were going to run tonight. So I kept on coming.’’

As Hayes made his way from second to third, stunned Rowan fans deputized themselves as coaches. They yelled for him to keep coming, too.

Hayes motored into third as the ball arrived back in the infield, but there was still no stop sign.

‘‘Statesville didn’t seem to be in a big hurry,’’ said DeHart.

But Hayes was. He blew down the third base line like Charismatic turning the quarter-pole at the Derby, crossing the plate with a blurring, stirring, head-first slide that would have made Pete Rose proud.

Two batters, two runs. That quickly, Rowan was energized and Statesville was demoralized. And Rowan kept that momentum the entire game.

‘‘You see little Cal going like the breeze and Paul too, and it gets you fired up,’’ said Rowan’s Eddie Guessford, who got excited enough to smack out four hits and drive in three runs. ‘‘Those guys can go.’’

In the third inning – with Black aboard – Hayes got a chance to circle the bases at a more leisurely clip than on his first at-bat. This time, he smoked the ball out of the yard for a 4-0 Rowan lead.

Then Hayes, who had done everything possible to get Rowan jump-started, passed the baton to his teammates. They didn’t drop it. Before the third inning was history, Brad Canipe had belted a long homer and Eric Mowery had singled sharply and hustled around on two passed balls.

‘‘When someone hits, everybody does,’’ said Canipe. ‘‘We hit the ball up and down the lineup. It felt good. We needed a game like this pretty bad.’’

Guessford’s two-run homer in the fourth made it an official laugher at 9-0.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s Jimmy Haynes, a tall right-hander, was sharp on the mound. He had a no-hitter until the fifth and struck out nine batters. He seemed to tire after 80-plus pitches and was relieved in the sixth, but by that point it would have taken a plague of locusts to stop Rowan from getting in the win column.

‘‘Jimmy did one heck of a job for us,’’ praised Guessford.

So did Guessford, who added an RBI single in the middle of an eight-run sixth. Rowan had not scored more than three runs in an inning this year, but in the sixth, Hayes had an RBI double, Brian Hatley ripped a two-run triple, Mowery singled in a run and Aaron Rimer delivered a two-run double off the bench.

DeHart was thrilled to see Hatley come through and equally pleased to see Chad Walker shake a slump with a run-scoring single in the seventh. Hatley and Walker are DeHart’s most experienced players. If Rowan is going to be successful, those two must lead the way.

‘‘It was great to see Hatley and Walker break out,’’ said DeHart. ‘‘Because they’re the ones our young guys are looking at.’’

The Rowan defense was exceptional – particularly Walker’s diving stop at first that he and shortstop Hatley magically transformed into a fifth-inning double play.

And then there was Daniel Moore, who relieved Haynes and got the last four outs of the seven-inning contest. Moore got them in his usual fashion – two Ks and two pickoffs.

‘‘I told Daniel to just go ahead and walk them, so he could pick them off,’’ said a grinning Guessford.

But then the slugger got serious.

‘‘Some people thought we had lost our confidence,’’ he said. ‘‘But we never lost it. We were just making some mental mistakes. But we took Sunday off, and everyone came back today and was ready to play ball.’’

‘‘We played a good game,’’ agreed DeHart. ‘‘We were patient at the plate and aggressive – not stupid – on the bases. But we didn’t take any giant steps, just a few little steps. We’re not out of the woods yet.’’

But at least now, Rowan can see the trail of bread crumbs leading out of the forest.

NOTES: Like Rowan, Statesville is 1-3. ... Black was hit twice by pitches and stole two bases. He and Hayes scored four runs each. ... Playing the outfield was tough. Early, right field was a horrible sun field. Later, the dim lighting contributed to a number of lost fly balls. ... Rowan will oppose Lexington tonight at Holt-Moffitt Field. Jesse Boger is expected to pitch.