By David ShawSalisbury Post
GRANITE QUARRY ó The Academy Award for Best Performance by an East Rowan player went to Corbin Shive Friday night.
The junior righthander was a better actor than pitcher ó and he tossed a complete-game shutout as the Mustangs kicked off the 3A state playoffs with a 3-0 win against visiting Southwest Randolph.
“That was probably the toughest shutout we’ve ever seen him throw,” catcher Austin Shull said after East (23-2) gained its 19th straight victory and a second-round match against Piedmont on Tuesday. “They kept putting the bat on his good pitches. He relied on his defense tonight.”
Shive yielded seven hits, rarely pitched ahead in the count and hit a couple of batters ó including SWR’s Jake Snow on the game’s first pitch. But he perservered through the middle innings, then sold a wonderful acting job with one out in the top of the sixth.
“That was definitely a morality-deflator,” losing coach Chris Cook said after SWR held the Mustangs to three hits and finished 11-14. “The baseball gods didn’t want us to win tonight.”
He may have a point. East held a two-run lead when Southwest’s Mark Asbill drilled a single to left-center field in the sixth inning and was lifted for pinch-runner Ed Smith ó a speedy freshman promoted from the junior varsity squad before SWR’s conference tournament last week.
After Shive threw a first-pitch strike to Alex Deaton, East coach Brian Hightower signaled for the Mustangs to attempt a variation of the hidden-ball trick.
“It’s just a trick play we’ve got in there,” he said with a Cheshire cat grin. “It was good because everyone on the bench and on the field sold it perfectly. It’s always a good play if it works.”
It began when Shive stepped off the rubber and faked a pickoff throw to first-baseman Trey Holmes, who immediately turned and began searching behind the bag for a ball that wasn’t there. Second-baseman Ethan Fisher pointed to the area near the right-side fence while Shull ran up the first-base line as though providing backup coverage.
“They had nine guys yelling, ‘Ball, ball, ball,'” said Cook. “That should have been the tipoff right there. Since when does a whole team ever yell that all at once?”
When it’s about to secure a post-season victory. All the confusion convinced Smith the ball was at large, so he broke for second base. Shive, still hiding it in his glove, calmly intercepted Smith’s path and tagged him out.
“It’s a play we’ve messed around with in practice but never used in a game,” said Shive, now 9-0 with a 1.20 ERA. “The second-baseman, first-baseman and outfielder (ER’s Zack Smith) all had to run over there like the ball was loose. When the runner took off I knew I had him.”
And when Shive fanned Deaton to end the inning, the Mustangs had all the momentum they’d need to prevail on a night when it didn’t exactly tear the cover off the ball. SWR starter Scott Hayes surrendered only two hits in five innings. East scored its first run on a third-inning throwing error and another on a wild pitch in the fifth by the deceptive junior.
“With a pitcher like that, you have to have discipline,” said Shull, who whistled a base hit past Hayes’ ear in the bottom of the third. “I saw a bunch of our guys out on their front foot, reaching for pitches and hitting it off the end of the bat. The key was to stay back and hit middle-opposite field.”
In the meantime, Southwest was forcing Shive to live dangerously. The guests stranded two runners in scoring position in the first inning, one in the second and left the bases loaded in the fourth.
“Corbin showed us how important he is,” said Hightower. “He pitched out of jam after jam. And we played some good defense when we had to.”
East center-fielder Micah Jarrett reeled in the catch of the day when he backtracked to grab Aaron Williamson’s deep drive in the last of the second. And left-fielder Ben Decelle raced into foul territory to snag Evan Underwood’s fourth-inning fly with a runner on base.
“I needed them,” Shive said. “After hitting a guy with my first pitch, I took something off and started letting the defense make plays for me. I wasn’t trying to do too much.”
He did enough to launch ER into the second round and a home date with Piedmont (14-11), a 6-5 first-round winner against Parkland.
“At this point it’s just survive and advance,” said Holmes. “That’s all that matters.”
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NOTES: Holmes whipped a double to left-center in the first inning and reached base three times. Zack Smith had East’s third hit ó a double into the right-field corner in the sixth.
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Contact David Shaw at dshaw@salisburypost.com.