Hawks hand Eagles first loss

By Ryan Hanchett
Published in Sports on March 24, 2009 1:46 PM

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Perennial 2-A baseball power North Lenoir pounded out 16 hits and grounded previously-unbeaten Rosewood 10-1 on Monday evening.

The Eagles suffered their first loss in six outings this season.

"I was pretty happy with how well we hit the ball today," said North Lenoir head coach Jim Montague. "Our guys at the top of the order put the ball in play, and our guys in the middle and toward the bottom of the lineup hit the ball hard to drive them in."

North Lenoir jumped on top 2-0 in the second inning.

Najee Jackson and Zach Brown each delivered consecutive singles and each moved into scoring position on a Rosewood error. Spencer Moye immediately plated the pair with a base hit.

After adding a third-inning run, the Hawks broke the game open in the fourth inning.

Brown and Moye each singled, and Dajuan Gray was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Tyler Potter drove in one run with a productive groundout and Mike Wetherington stroked a two-RBI triple into the left center-field gap.

"North Lenoir is a very good ballclub and we didn't play our best game," said first-year Rosewood head coach Jason King. "If we would have played like we're capable it might have been a little closer."

The Eagles avoided the shutout in the seventh inning.

Cody Richards drew a lead-off walk and was pushed to third on Steven Bostic's single. A North Lenoir error allowed Richards to score, but relief pitcher Tyler Potter settled down and retired the final two Eagles without incident.

"I really felt like we hit the ball pretty well, but we hit it at people all afternoon," said King. "Early in the year we had some guys hot and some others struggling. Today it seemed like everyone was hitting the ball right to a defender."

Wetherington tossed six innings of one-hit ball to earn the win on the mound. The tall right-hander struck out seven and walked only one.

"Mike is going to keep us in a lot of games when he's on the hill," said Montague. "We're a young team so we have to watch our pitching pretty close, but tonight Mike did a great job."

North Lenoir (5-2 overall) entertains Eastern Wayne on Wednesday. Rosewood is the guest of Hobbton the same afternoon.