Faucette saves Wayne County Post 11 on road

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on July 9, 2014 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

WINDSOR -- Down seven runs through six-plus innings, pesky Windsor Post 37 refused to quit Tuesday evening.

In fact, it nearly pulled off a miraculous last at-bat comeback.

But Wayne County, somehow, managed to escape -- again.

Ryan Faucette earned the save in a daunting relief situation and preserved Wayne County's 8-7 victory on the Bertie High School diamond. Post 11 grabbed a commanding 2-0 advantage in the best-of-five Area I East semifinal series that continues today at Southern Wayne High School.

First pitch is 7 p.m.

"Whew," Faucette said.

Indeed.

Top-seeded Wayne County (12-4-1 overall) seemed in command heading into the seventh inning. Darren Armstrong crushed a two-run home run, his first of the series, to pull Windsor to within 8-3.

The long ball off of Post 11 left-hander Greg Johnson seemed harmless at the time.

"When that kid hit the home run, we had to make sure that we locked back in and started throwing the ball down in the zone, and we had to play sound defense behind our pitchers," WC head coach Jason Sherrer said.

Neither happened.

A normally sure-handed Post 11 defensive unit uncharacteristically broke down at the wrong time. Fifth-seeded Windsor (4-10) plated two unearned runs when Martin Ange's routine, two-out fly ball was bobbled in the outfield.

In the ninth, Wayne County reliever Coy Barnett yielded a lead-off single to Terrence Jackson. The next batter, Armstrong, reached base on an infield error. Kyle Leggett doubled into the power alley to score Jackson and Sherrer called timeout to change pitchers.

Faucette warmed up with Post 11 ahead 8-6.

The hard-throwing right-hander issued a bases-loaded walk to Jack Downum Jr. -- one of four Post 37 batters to reach base at least four times in the 2-hour, 50-minute affair. After a strikeout, Caleb Sherman lofted a fly ball to left field that Wayne County defender Allen Coor tracked down toward the foul line.

Armstrong scooted home to make it 8-7.

With the game-tying run on second base, Faucette needed just four pitches to strike out pinch-hitter Cole Woolard and extend Wayne County's win streak to six games.

"I was a little nervous about coming in," said Faucette. "I was feeling good, though. I was throwing it ... locating, but not trying to be fine and just letting it go.

"They seem to always come back whether it's our defense or they get a few hits. I wanted to go in and I was ready for it, but that's hard.

Faucette became just the third Post 11 hurler to collect a save this season along with Tim Naughton and Jackson Hayes. Johnson (5-1) scattered seven hits and yielded three runs (two earned) in a 112-pitch outing that lasted seven innings.

"Faucette hadn't thrown but maybe an inning or two, but he's got the mindset where he's not going to lose," Sherrer said. "He's a refuse-to-lose guy and that's who you want on the mound.

"(I thought) we pitched well enough to win and our defense completely let us down ... huge error in center field and we should have bodied up a couple of balls in the infield. (In the ninth) we couldn't shut down the inning by getting the third out."

Post 11 exploded for five first-inning runs, including a two-RBI double by Chad Spurgeon. Sherrer's club added a single run in the fifth and extended its advantage to 8-1 in the sixth against Post 37 reliever Zach Eubanks.

Wayne County became complacent from that point as nine of its final 10 batters either popped up in the infield or grounded out. Post 11 finished with 10 hits -- all during the first six innings.

"They're not a bad ball team, but I feel like we shouldn't be making so many errors ... need to play better than we have been," Faucette said. "We've got to hit the ball and stay on it like we did (tonight). We've got to keep on (going)."