Rosewood remains unbeaten in Carolina 1-A baseball
By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on April 24, 2010 11:09 PM
Rosewood nearly took its foot off the gas too early.
Ayden-Grifton cut a 6-0 deficit down to a single run before the Eagles answered with six runs in the bottom of the sixth inning, and scratched out a 12-5 win in Carolina 1-A Conference play Friday evening.
The Chargers (9-8 overall, 2-4 CC) pushed across five runs in the bottom of the sixth to pull within 6-5 on two errors, two bases-loaded walks, two wild pitches and a fielder's choice.
Rosewood responded with six runs of its own with two outs in the home half of the sixth. Will Winslow started the outburst with a two-run, inside-the-park home run. Scott Pate added a two-run triple and Trevor Cox scored Pate with a triple of his own. Cox later scored on a wild pitch.
"It was basically keeping your feet to the fire," said Eagles head coach Jason King. "We talked about not taking your foot off the gas. We did a little bit there and booted the ball around a little bit. They kept battling which is what we talk about and we kept swinging the bat."
Rosewood starting pitcher Will Beasley cruised through the first five innings. He surrendered just one hit and struck out eight before running into trouble in the sixth.
Beasley walked three Chargers and watched as a pair of errors were committed behind him. He surrendered four runs (one earned) on one hit with eight strikeouts and four walks in four innings of work. Cody Harris and Matt Neal each pitched an inning of relief.
"It may have been a little bit of both (fatigue and struggling to locate pitches)," said King. "At the point Will was up over 90 pitches. He was throwing the ball so well, and we kicked the ball around a little bit and we can't let him stay up there and labor.
"He threw a great game and gave us a chance to win the ballgame."
Tanner Price gave the Eagles an early lead with a two-run single in the bottom of the second inning. Neal followed with an RBI single. Price led the offense with three hits and two RBI. Neal (two RBI), Beasley, Winslow (two RBI) and Will Grantham each had two hits.
Neal added a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth. Harris tacked on a sac fly and Winslow belted a solo home run to center field.
Rosewood (10-6, 6-0) kept its one-game advantage over Spring Creek in the league standings. The Eagles visit Goldsboro on Tuesday before a rematch with the Gators on Thursday in Seven Springs.
"We're just trying to maintain," said King. "This is a tough conference. You can get beat up real quick. We're just trying to take it one game at a time and one inning at a time and take the good with the bad.
"We're going to kick the ball around some, everybody makes errors. We've got to drop those and go to the next play. If we can continue to do that, I think we can be successful and stay on track."