Errors aid Whiteville in east 1A regional opener

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on May 29, 2014 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

Whiteville lived by the "put the ball in play and make something happen" philosophy Wednesday evening.

Even a Band-Aid couldn't stop the bleeding for Rosewood's defense, which committed a playoff-high seven errors.

The Wolfpack profited greatly from those miscues and cranked out 14 hits in a 14-5 romp over the Eagles in game one of the 2014 N.C. High School Athletic Association Class 1-A eastern regional baseball championship series.

Game two in the best-of-three matchup is Friday at Whiteville. First pitch is 7 p.m.

"That was a rough one," Rosewood head coach Jason King said. "The bottom line is they put the bat on the ball, we didn't make some plays defensively that we needed to. When you do that, you give a really good team extra chances on base (and) they're going to make you pay for it.

"And they did."

Eight of nine Whiteville starters recorded at least one hit, and the Wolfpack pushed across runs in six of seven innings. Connor Grainger delivered a four-hit performance, while winning pitcher Zack Pait batted 2-for-5 with a two-run homer in the sixth inning.

Three Rosewood hurlers -- starter Reed Howell, and relievers Nick Neal and Brent Breedlove -- combined to surrender six unearned runs. Howell, who endured his first postseason defeat on the rubber, threw 96 pitches -- including 63 strikes in a five-inning stint.

Errors helped Whiteville extend the first, fourth and fifth innings. Hunter Norwood (2-for-4, four RBI) provided a two-RBI single in the first. An infield error and wild-pitch third strike proved critical in the fourth, while back-to-back infield bobbles led to trouble in the fifth.

The Wolfpack (23-5 overall) led 7-1 after five innings.

"(The errors) are correctable," King said.

Khalil Warren stroked a lead-off triple down the right-field line in the fifth and scored on Jordan Lynn's groundout.

The Eagles (20-5) closed the gap to 10-5 with a three-run, sixth-inning outburst. A Whiteville error, Howell's RBI infield hit and Jordan Gurley's bases-loaded RBI walk trimmed the deficit in half.

The Wolfpack tallied four seventh-inning runs.

"Every time we seemed to chip a little bit off, then they'd go and tack on two or three more," King said. "That's not a race you can win if you can't slow the bleeding. I was happy with their grit.

"They've fought back in games all year long and we've been successful most of the time. This time we weren't."

Howell, Warren and Corey Lynn paced the Eagles' offense with two hits apiece. Gurley, Derek Neal and Breedlove each provided one hit.