Staff report

KANNAPOLIS — Corbin Bailey and Hayden Simmerson combined on a shutout, and JT Taylor drove in five runs as Rowan County routed Concord 13-0 on Thursday in an American Legion baseball game played at A.L. Brown High.

Rowan had 16 hits and made no errors and improved to 11-2 overall. Rowan is 2-0 in the Southern Division of Area III, with both division wins coming against Concord.

North Carolina A&T recruit Taylor had a rough night at the plate on Wednesday, but had no trouble putting that one behind him and getting back on track. He had two-run doubles in the first and seventh innings. In between those at-bats, he walked, singled and hit a sacrifice fly.

Luke Graham also had three hits and one of Rowan’s seven doubles.

Blake Hill got on base often, had a double and scored three runs.

Also collecting doubles for Rowan were Elijah Palmer, Hayden Simmerson and Emory Taylor, who came off the bench in the seventh and got a hit down the left-field line.

Rowan scored three runs in the first inning on Simmerson’s run-scoring single and JT Taylor’s first double.

That was all the run support Bailey would need. He threw five efficient innings, limiting Concord to four hits. He walked two and struck out two.

Simmerson handled the last two innings on the mound with no issues.

The defensive highlight for Rowan was the 3-6-1 double play that Morgan Padgett started in the fifth inning. Taylor made the turn and Bailey covered first.

Those are scarce. There may not be another one all summer.

Rowan heads into a very busy weekend with a game against Queen City at 8 p.m. on Friday night at Shelby’s Keeter Stadium.

Rowan will play “pool” games on Saturday afternoon against Wayne County (2 p.m.) and Cleveland County (4:30 p.m.).

Depending on the outcome of the pool games, Rowan will play at 12 or 2 or not at all on Sunday.

 

Rowan County    320   022   4   — 13  16   0

Concord               000   000  0   —  0    4    1

W — Bailey (2-0).

HR — None.

 

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MOORESVILLE — Jalan Chambers socked a tie-breaking grand slam in the 10th inning to lift Kannapolis to a 7-2 win at Mooresville on Thursday.

Kannapolis scored in the top of the seventh to get the game to extra innings.

Joe Javier and Zack Helms gave Kannapolis outstanding pitching. They combined for 14 strikeouts.

Kannapolis  had 12 hits.

•••

LEXINGTON — Carter Brown had three RBIs as Randolph County rallied to beat Davidson County 6-5 on Thursday.

Randolph had to overcome a three-run blast by Post 8’s Bo Tiller.