Rosewood secures league championship

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on May 5, 2010 1:47 PM

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Rosewood answered the challenge.

North Duplin never counter-punched.

The Rebels scratched in the scoring column during their first at-bat, but the Eagles eventually soared to a 10-4 victory on senior night at The Nest. Rosewood claimed its second consecutive Carolina 1-A Conference championship outright and secured the league's No. 1 seed for the upcoming state playoffs.

"We score the first run, do things well," said North Duplin coach Joey Keefe. "We lost focus early. I felt like we came out of the gates dragging, thinking we're going to come out and we're going to play a good ballgame no matter what we do because we had been playing well.

"We had won some close ballgames as of late. Maybe we were a little over confident."

Down 1-0, Rosewood responded with a five-run outburst and stayed in command.

Will Beasley's one-out single and Trevor Cox's two-RBI triple spearheaded the Eagles' first at-bat. Beasley and Cox combined for three hits and three RBI in six plate appearances.

"We've hit the ball well for the most part in every home game this year," said Eagles head coach Jason King. "I told the boys there was no doubt in my mind we're going to come out and do the same, put the ball in play and score runs.

"It was good to put some runs on the board after they scored."

The Eagles (13-6 overall, 9-0 CC) added a second-inning run on Matt Neal's RBI sacrifice fly to center field.

North Duplin (12-5, 5-4) pulled within 6-4 on Marcus Kornegay's RBI single in the third inning, and a two-run scoring error. But the Rebels had just two base runners during the final four innings.

Beasley retired nine of the final 11 batters he faced. The right-hander picked off a runner in the fifth and profited from a sixth-inning double play. He logged 11 strikeouts and permitted four hits in six innings.

"Will did a great job mixing it up and they hit the ball a little bit early," said King. "He's done a great job all year and been there for us when we needed him."

Neal struck out the side in the seventh.

Seven of nine Rosewood starters collected at least one hit in the 2-hour, 4-minute affair. Will Winslow (3 RBI) pounded out three hits, while Cody Harris (2 RBI) doubled and tripled in three at-bats. Neal, Taylor Price and Jonathan Franks also contributed to the offensive attack.

Shayne Deaver led the Rebels with two hits.