Gators' Rouse throws 4-hit shutout

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on April 20, 2016 1:48 PM

• Print
• Email

jhayes@newsargus.com

SEVEN SPRINGS -- All's well that ends well.

Bend, but don't break.

The Spring Creek varsity baseball team lived both idioms Tuesday evening, twice emerging from potential trouble to register a 2-0 victory over neighboring Carolina 1-A Conference foe Hobbton.

The Gators moved to 12-5 overall, 9-0 in league play.

SC starter Will Rouse retired his first two batters on consecutive pitches, then surrendered base hits to Jackson McLamb and Gage Herring. With runners on first and second, Rouse tapped his poise, fanning the Wildcats' Hunter Britt to stifle any notion of an early rally.

The escape was part of an eight-strikeout, complete-game victory for the senior. It also served to foreshadow the game's final inning.

Hobbton's Gage Herring, meanwhile, staged his own show.

Making his seventh appearance on the season, the righty did little to inflate an absurdly low 0.53 earned run average (ERA). Over six innings, he allowed two runs on seven hits, and walked just a single batter.

The two bookend runs, however, proved costly.

Spring Creek's Hunter Walker notched the first of those in the opening inning, reaching base on a single to right field. After stealing second, the senior scored on an RBI single by catcher Kane Geelen. The Gators led, 1-0.

Walker and Geelen each finished 1-for-3 at the plate.

From there, Rouse defined the evening.

He kept Hobbton hitters off balance in the strike zone, inducing ground balls and liners hit directly to the Gator nine. Of the 25 Wildcats he faced, six met their fate via the lazy pop fly.

The effort was praised by SC skipper Doyle Whitfield.

"He just pounds the strike zone, one of those unique kids," Whitfield noted. "They don't come along very often."

The same could be said of Herring, whose live arm and rangy delivery posed trouble for the Gators. On the evening, he forced Spring Creek into an uncharacteristic amount of stranded base runners -- seven.

Until the sixth inning.

With one out, SC grabbed a much-needed slice of momentum. Casey Whitfield dropped a perfect safety-squeeze bunt, scoring basepath livewire act Sawyer Smith from third base. The effort provided Rouse a 2-0 insurance policy, and served a past-due delivery of their trademark brand of baseball.

"We left a lot in scoring position (seven)," Whitfield said. "And I figured it might come back to haunt us. Luckily, it didn't."

Credit the rubber arm of Rouse for that.

After giving up two base hits to start the top of the seventh, the senior punched the Wildcat's return ticket to Sampson County by striking out two of his final three batters.

All's well that ends well.

Bend, but don't break.

Spring Creek, which holds a tenuous one game lead over rival Rosewood in the conference, plays host to Neuse Charter this afternoon. Hobbton fell to 9-6 this season.