Golden Falcons run past Saints, claim regular-season sweep

By Cam Ellis
Published in Sports on April 18, 2015 11:06 PM

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cellis@newsargus.com

DUDLEY -- The box score looked almost identical.

Charles B. Aycock and Southern Wayne each had seven hits and one error.

The only difference -- the Golden Falcons won 12-3 in the Eastern Carolina 3-A/4-A Conference matchup Friday evening.

Aycock got ahead early.

Center-fielder Chandler Matthews walked, stole second and advanced to third on Bobby Hampton's single. Matthews scored on a double steal to make it 1-0.

Hampton, Hank Smitherman and Cameron Kornegay also scored in the four-run inning. Jacob Naughton had a sacrifice fly and Trent Herndon had a two-out double.

"The first inning I felt was going to be key," head coach Charles Davis said. "Southern Wayne is traditionally a tough place to play, so I thought a key was going to be able to jump on them early. We were able to do that in the first and second innings."

Aggressive on the basepaths all night, the Falcons consistently stole second base on numerous first pitches to batters. The Golden Falcons had nine stolen bases on the night.

Davis wanted his team to get back to playing "Aycock baseball."

"It just felt good to put the uniform back on," he said. "It wasn't the cleanest game that we've had, and that was to be expected after all the days we had off."

Hampton started on the mound, but Davis limited him to just two innings. The Appalachian State signee threw a shutout that included two walks and two strikeouts.

"We haven't played in so long," Davis said, "and these guys needed to get some work in. They can throw all the bullpens they want, but they need some live work, and that was our plan."

Southern Wayne's pitchers allowed nine walks, threw three wild pitches and hit two batters. Aycock's bottom part of the batting order did most of the offensive damage.

"It's like I told them, our mindset has to be the exact same on every pitch that we through," Saints head coach Jackson Massey said. "It can't be, 'well I'm going to work really hard against this guy because he's really good, but I'm going to ease off against this guy because he's in the bottom of the order.'"

"It's the 8-9 guys that we hit and walk instead of making them prove that they can really hit the ball."

Matt Holland endured the pitching loss. He gave up the early four runs and was taken out of the game after walking and hitting the first two batters of the second inning.

"Matt's been good for us all year," Massey said, "but he just didn't have it tonight."

Each team continues its playoff push next week.

"This whole season will prepare us for the playoffs," Massey said. "Our conference will send three to the playoffs. Last year that benefited and we ended up making it to the second round of the playoffs because we see teams like Aycock every day.

"There are no days off."