CHINA GROVE — Carson’s baseball team is coming of age before everyone’s eyes.

The Cougars boast 14 underclassmen on their roster, but they played with the composure of seasoned veterans in Friday’s 6-5 South Piedmont Conference win against visiting East Rowan.

“They’ve been a thorn in our side since we came into existence,” coach Chris Cauble said after Carson (9-6, 6-4) shoehorned itself into fourth place in the league standings. “I think this is about the second time in about 15 tries that we’ve beaten them. Even when we won the conference and the conference tournament, during the regular season they’ve had our number. The good thing is some of these young guys don’t know that.”

History has served East Rowan (10-8, 5-5) well — even if its defense didn’t Friday. The Mustangs committed five errors and surrendered four unearned runs, leading to yet another folly-filled loss.

“It’s every night,” said East Rowan coach Brian Hightower. “We’ve just got to make more plays for our pitchers.”

The game began as a better-than-advertised pitcher’s duel between East Rowan’s four-game winner Logan Towne and Carson freshman Owen White. It was scoreless through four innings with Towne sliding pitches across the corners and White using an effective, slow-bending curve to get ahead of hitters.

“(White) focused on hitting his spots and letting us play defense,” said Carson catcher Ryan Bearden. “You watch him and he plays mature. I think he has a whole lot of potential”

White, a tall right-hander,  struck out six and fired first-pitch strikes to 11 of East Rowan’s first 15 batters. That changed in the top of the fifth when a cleat from his plant foot got caught in something on the mound, forcing a brief timeout.

“I lost my rhythm a little bit,” White said after improving to 4-0. “After that inning Cauble told us if we wanted to win this game we’d have to come together as a unit. We ended up using little things to our advantage.”

They did, but not before East Rowan jumped to a 3-0 fifth-inning lead. With the bases loaded and one away, John Owen skipped a two-run single through a drawn-in infield. Then Sam Wyrick laced a run-scoring double to right field, his second two-bagger of the game.

“The past two years, if we go down 3-0 to East, we think we’re dead dogs,” said Heath Mitchem, one of three Carson seniors. “That’s what’s great about having all this youth. This is just another game to them.”

The Cougars grew up in the bottom of the fifth, when they sent 10 batters to plate and scored all six of their runs. The first crossed on an infield error, the second when Towne unleashed a wild pitch.

“He really had command early on,” said Hightower. “But I don’t know. He sort of lost it and then there were a couple of hits and he was out of the game.”

White greeted reliever Alec Hamilton with a run-scoring single before Bearden’s liner into center put Carson ahead. Brandon Mock added an RBI single and Carson’s final run scored on another miscue. East Rowan scored twice in the sixth inning on wild pitches to finish White’s stint on the mound and Mitchem, a strong left-hander, pitched a scoreless seventh to earn a save.

“It’s a big win, but we’re not treating it like it’s our Super Bowl,” Mitchem concluded. “It’s just something we can build from.”

 

East Rowan  000 032 0 — 5  7  5

Carson  000 060 x — 6  5  1

WP — White (4-0). LP — Towne (4-2)