By David Shaw
dshaw@salisburypost.com
For four innings Friday night, Salisbury’s baseball team looked like a CCC lightweight about to hit the canvas.
The Hornets were four runs down to top-seeded West Davidson in the confernce semifinals and Dragons’ righthander Josh Andrews had found a groove, retiring 10 of the last 11 batters he had faced.
“Pretty much, we were dead in the water,” coach Scott Maddox said after Salisbury stormed back for an 11-4 win. “For four innings I didn’t see that fifth inning coming. That’s when we jumped up and started hitting. That’s what I’ve been looking for all year.”
Salisbury’s reward is a berth in Monday night’s championship game at Robertson Stadium and a shot at the CCC’s No. 2 seed in next week’s 2A state playoffs. West (15-6) — which had won 10 straight games and hadn’t lost since dropping a 4-0 decision to Salisbury in late March — has secured the conference’s top seed.
“Absolutely nothing went wrong for us for the last month-and-a-half,” said WD coach Jerry Walser. “Maybe we were due for this kind of performance.”
The Dragons were felled by five errors — atypical of a team that had committed only 15 before the first pitch. Six of Salisbury’s runs were unearned. But the fourth-seeded Hornets, limited to one hit through four innings, scored seven runs on seven hits against Andrews in the top of the fifth.
“His fastball had some tail,” said winning pitcher Brian Bauk. “Some late movement. It would break in on the righthanders and away from the lefties. It took a while, but everybody got used to it.”
Bauk, who threw five wild pitches, trailed 2-0 when West’s Gary Ferguson punched a two-out, two-run double into the right-center gap in the bottom of the second.
“I kept trying to throw my curveball, but it wasn’t working,” Bauk said. “Then I figured it out and started throwing cutters, which gave them two pitches to worry about.”
West finished the game with four hits, but only one over the last five innings. And despite his control problems, Bauk perservered through six innings, struck out 11 and walked five.
“Brian puts a lot of pressure on himself,” said Maddox. “He tries too hard sometimes. Tonight he was pressing until around the third inning. That’s when he started staying around the plate and making them put the ball in play.”
Meanwhile, Salisbury’s hitters made a tell-tale adjustment against Andrews. They moved up in the batter’s box and stood closer to the plate, diminishing the senior’s effectiveness.
“We just wanted to make contact and force them to make plays,” Nolan Meyerhoeffer said after going 2-for-3 with a walk.
Meyerhoeffer triggered Salisbury’s fifth-inning outburst with a leadoff single to left on a 1-2 pitch. “That was a good at-bat,” he said. “I was was waiting for a good pitch and kept fouling off everything I didn’t like. Finally I got one.”
Before the inning was over, Meyerhoeffer was back at the plate, the 10th of 12 SHS batters. This time he bounced a two-out, two-run single to center that gave the Hornets a 7-4 lead. Other key hits were delivered by John Knox, Clint Veal and Kyle Wolfe.
“We didn’t capitalize on our lead,” Walser lamented afterward. “Salisbury is a wonderful offensive team. You can’t cruise with a lead against them.”
Added Meyerhoeffer, “This is a good time for the pieces of he puzzle to come together for us.”
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NOTES: Salisbury will meet East Davidson in Monday’s championship game. West Davidson will host a first-round playoff game next Friday. … Knox, Meyerhoeffer and Spencer Carmichael each had two hits for the Hornets.