LANDIS — Five errors doomed Southern Rowan’s legion baseball team in a 7-4 defeat to the Mooresville Legends Monday night at South Rowan.
The Legends scored in four consecutive innings and never let go of the lead to improve to 2-6.
Southern fell to 3-3.
“Right now, we’re just not hitting the ball,” Southern coach Ben Hampton said. “We’re not going in there with a mentality that we’ve got a job to do.”
Southern pitcher John Daugherty threw 4 2/3 innings and got into trouble in the third when Mooresville put together four straight hits to take a 2-0 lead. The final line for the Carson senior included allowing six runs on 10 hits while the defense committed three errors behind him.
“He gave us five good innings,” Hampton said. “He got hurt in the third inning. He got some fastballs up in the zone and they jumped on ‘em. We didn’t played good defense either and that hurt us.”
Brian Ferguson got the start for Mooresville going six innings allowing three runs, one earned, on three hits. Dalton Brinkley threw the final three innings for the save, allowing one run on three hits.
Mooresville added another run in the fourth before Southern got two in the bottom of the frame.
Mooresville’s Hunter Teeter hit a RBI double to extend the lead to 6-2 in the fifth. Teeter finished with two doubles.
Ben Gragg led Southern with three hits and also threw a scoreless ninth. Chase Labbe had a RBI double as part of a two-hit night.
Logan Davidson, Jack Carty and Dallas Jackson had two base hits and an RBI apiece. Pat Cerullo amd Kade Nichols got one hit and one RBI each. Davidson caused two walks.
Carson senior and East Carolina-bound Colton Laws started at first base and pitched scoreless frames in the seventh and eighth.
Laws hit a sacrifice fly at the plate and ended up with two RBIs. Both teams ended up with nine hits. Southern pushed across a run in the ninth, but it wasn’t enough.
“We’ve got good pitching right now,” Hampton said. “We just hit some balls hard tonight right at them.”
Southern will host Stanly County tonight at 6 in a rare wooden bat clash.
“Stanly coach Derek Barringer suggested that we mix it up a little bit,” Hampton said. “It’s kind of cool and you break up the monotony.”