By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Rowan County’s American Legion season isn’t done yet, mostly because about 99 of the 103 pitches Hayden Simmerson threw on Monday night were good ones.

Simmerson shut down Randolph County’s booming bats and got 17 of the necessary 21 outs in a 5-0 victory at Newman Park. Luke Graham got one out. Morgan Padgett got the last three.

“We scored five early and that put me in a position to throw strikes and go after hitters,” Simmerson said. “I had utmost confidence in the guys we’ve got behind me in the field. And I’ve got utmost confidence in that guy (catcher Cameron Burleyson) behind the plate. He put down the fingers. I just threw what he wanted.”

Rowan won three games to two in an Area III semifinal series that see-sawed wildly depending on who was playing in front of its home crowd.

Rowan got thumped on the road by Post 45, 11-0 and 11-2, but won the home games 8-2, 10-0 and 5-0, so home field mattered a lot.

Rowan scored 25 runs in the series, while Randolph scored 24. Randolph did just about all of its damage in two monstrous innings on its home field.

Simmerson, who stymied Randolph in Games 1 and 5, was the key to a series victory that puts Rowan County in another state tournament.

The single-site state tournament format was adopted in 2000. There was no Legion ball in the COVID year of 2020, so the 2023 state tournament that begins on July 25 at Campbell University will be the 23rd edition.

This will be the 14th time Rowan County has been one of the two Area III representatives in the state tourney. Rowan won state titles with the single-site format in 2002, 2009, 2015 and 2016. Rowan has never failed to win at least one game in the state tournament and has a 36-18 record in the tournament.

Simmerson, a Catawba recruit, had to be one of the state’s most underrated high school players. He was the Patrick Snider Memorial Award winner as the Rowan County Pitcher of the Year for the high school season — he was 7-2 with an ERA of 1.00 for a 13-12 Carson team — and he’s been even better in his first season of  Legion baseball.

“It’s all new and all exciting for me,” Simmerson said. “Having a blast.”

The right-hander is 7-0 this summer with an ERA of 0.78. His most remarkable stat is 66 strikeouts with only four walks.

Simmerson, who struck out 11 and allowed two hits, got Randolph out 1-2-3 in the top of the first inning, and then watched his teammates go to work.

JT Taylor walked, Blake Hill was hit by a pitch (on the elbow) and Luke Graham’s single to right scored Taylor — his 51st run of the season — and sent Hill to third.

Padgett hit a sacrifice fly to score Hill for a 2-0 lead.

Aiden Schenk’s infield hit combined with a throwing error made it 3-0. Elijah Palmer’s two-run double to center with two outs and two strikes gave Simmerson a 5-0 cushion.

Rowan didn’t do much offensively after the first inning, as Hunter Atkins and Tanner Marsh supplied shutdown relief for Randolph County.

But Rowan had Simmerson on the hill, and he refused to let Randolph back in the game.

“That’s a strong lineup Randolph has,” Simmerson said. “They are a lot like the lineup I faced when I faced East Rowan in high school in that they’ve got a lot of good hitters who can foul off pitches, stay alive and run up your pitch count. But they’ve got more experience than East. They’ve got a lot of high school graduates and some guys coming back from college.”

The critical inning for Simmerson was the top of the fifth. While Rowan (36-5) still had that 5-0 lead, Randolph loaded the bases against Simmerson from the bottom of the lineup with a hit batsman, an infield hit and a walk. When Simmerson walked the No. 9 hitter, a potentially disastrous inning seemed possible.

The next two batters were Marsh, a Liberty recruit who had a grand slam in the series, and Atkins, a UNC Greensboro recruit who hit three homers in the series.

It could have been 5-4 in a hurry with one missed location and one big swing, but Simmerson won both battles. He struck out both sluggers.

“Got ahead of Marsh 0-and-2 and we were able to get him to chase a slider out of the zone for the strikeout,” Simmerson said. “The count went full on Atkins and I got the strikeout on a fastball.”

Simmerson was at 94 pitches after five innings. He went back out for the sixth and struck out two more. He threw 70 of his 103 pitches for strikes.

The pitch count limit is 105. Luke Graham came over from third base to get the final out of the inning. Graham got a strikeout of another tough hitter after being down 3-and-0 in the count. Catcher Cam Burleyson held on to a foul tip on that third out.

Padgett, who pitched very well as Rowan’s starter in Game 2, took the mound for the seventh and retired Randolph on eight pitches.

So Rowan moves on.

Next is the Area III championship game with High Point (17-3). That game will determine a trophy, bragging rights and seeding for the state tournament, but the pressure isn’t as great now. Both teams know they’re in the state tournament, with High Point returning for the first time since 2018. That game will be played on Thursday night. Both teams are No. 1 seeds from their respective divisions, but  Rowan coach Jim Gantt expects the game to be played at Newman Park.

As for Randolph (23-6), it’s season isn’t over. While Post 45 will miss the excitement of the state tournament, it will return to action as the host of the Southeast Regional on Aug. 2-6. Randolph will be joined for the regional at McCrary Park by the North Carolina state champ. Rowan or High Point could be that champ.

Cherryville and Cleveland County (Shelby) are the state tournament qualifiers from Area IV.