Wayne County's Casbarro delivers game-winning hit in 11th inning

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on July 10, 2015 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

WINTERVILLE -- Jack Casbarro expected one of Pitt County Post 39's middle infielders to make a play on his grounder up the middle.

But when the ball bounced past the outstretched glove of second baseman Frankie Williamson into center field in the top of the 11th inning Thursday evening, Casbarro and his Wayne County Post 11 teammates exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

Casbarro's two-out, two-RBI base knock capped a come-from-behind, 11-9 triumph over Pitt County in Game 2 of their best-of-five Area I East Division semifinal-round series. Wayne County leads 2-0 heading into tonight's game at Dudley.

Tied at 9-9, Hunter Barwick legged out a two-strike infield single with one out in the top of the 11th. Barwick moved into scoring position on Lee Daniels' two-out single that dropped into shallow right field behind first base.

Casbarro followed with his eventual game-winning hit.

"I wasn't trying to do anything special, just tried to hit it on the ground and get it in play," said Casbarro, who had gone hitless with a sacrifice bunt and walk in his previous five plate appearances.

"I was glad I hit it on the ground and really glad when he (Williamson) missed it."

Bobby Hampton threw 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief and claimed his first mound decision of the season. Hampton entered with the bases loaded in the seventh inning and yielded a go-ahead RBI single to Hunter Cannon, who put Pitt County in front 9-8.

Coy Barnett tied the game at 9-9 with a two-out single that scored Kevin Williams, who smacked a lead-off double to deep center field, in the top of the eighth inning.

Post 39 stranded the series-tying run at third base in the bottom of the eighth and ninth innings. Hampton retired the final nine batters he faced and logged five strikeouts during his 72-pitch outing.

Pitt County left 17 men aboard, including 12 in scoring position.

"Bobby pitched ... probably ... four more innings than he had planned on," Wayne County head coach Jason Sherrer said. "He's the type of player who has that bulldog mentality, will put a team on his back and say 'let's go, let's win it'."

Wayne County (17-5 overall) built a 4-0 lead through 3 1/2 innings on Hank Smitherman's RBI single, Casbarro's RBI groundout and two Post 39 errors.

That advantage disappeared in the fourth when an infield error, which would have been the third out, extended the inning for Pitt County and led to a five-run outburst. A seventh-inning miscue, which would also have been the third out, allowed Post 39 to seize its second one-run lead of the game.

All nine of Post 39's runs were unearned.

"You put yourself in position to make the routine play and we never ask our guys to go above and beyond to make the extraordinary play," Sherrer said. "If you make the routine plays, you've got a shot. We just kind of buckled up and both of those guys haven't shown that the entire year.

"It was an absolute grind the last four or five innings."