Naughton shuts down Pitt County Post 39 offense

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on June 16, 2015 1:48 PM

• Print
• Email

rcoggins@newsargus.com

WINTERVILLE -- Jacob Naughton could have easily lost his concentration in the heat and humidity, and especially when his Wayne County Post 11 teammates had three big offensive innings Monday evening.

But the right-hander never lost focus.

In his first career Senior Legion start, Naughton tossed a four-hitter through six innings and Wayne County pounded out a 13-3, mercy-rule decision over Pitt County Post 39 in Area I East Division play.

"I try to keep a consistent frame of mind, try to stay aggressive," Naughton said. "When you have those long innings when you get lots of runs, you start having tendencies to become sort of complacent and relax too much.

"Really what you want to do is stay in an aggressive mindset, and come out on the field and shut them down because they're looking to come back in the game with a big inning."

Pitt County never found such luck.

Naughton allowed seven base runners and wiggled out of fourth-inning trouble with an inning-ending strikeout. Pitt County plated two unearned runs in the fifth to break up Naughton's shutout bid.

Post 39 stranded eight runners, including four in scoring position.

"I was locating my fastball, locating my split, locating my slider ... had control of everything, hitting my spots and keeping them off balance," said Naughton, who recorded five strikeouts and yielded just one walk in 94 pitches.

"It was all going good ... my first start, a pretty good way to start off for my team."

Jordan Gurley tossed one inning of three-hit, one-strikeout relief as Post 11 picked up its 10th victory in its last 11 outings.

Wayne County (10-3 overall, 5-1 East) gave Naughton all of the run support he needed in the third inning.

Post 39 right-hander Bryce Fleming labored to find the strike zone and walked the bases loaded with two outs. Chad Spurgeon (2 for 5, four RBI) ripped a three-RBI double that sailed over the left fielder's head and bounced off the wall.

"A fastball inside on my hands and I turned on it. I thought I had me one (a home run)," said Spurgeon, who capped the rally when he took third on a wild pitch and scored on catcher Matt Conlin's errant pickoff throw that sailed into left field.

Post 11 plated four unearned runs on the night.

"The first two (innings) went down like water, but we battled back over the next two and Chad came up with a huge hit ... had been struggling a little bit, but we stuck with him in his (batting) spot," WC head coach Jason Sherrer said.

"(Chad's hit) was a sigh of relief because it's one of those things where you don't know how the game is going to go. Is the pitcher going to keep us off balance the entire time and are they going to keep making plays?

"When something like that happens, it frees everybody up ... loosens them up to where they play their game."

Wayne County built a 7-0 lead through 3 1/2 innings and took command with a six-run, sixth-inning outburst. Spurgeon, Allen Coor (2 for 4) and pinch-hitter Trent Herndon combined for three hits and five RBI during the back-breaking inning.

Post 11 finished with nine hits on the night.