By David Shaw
dshaw@salisburypost.com
Happy endings are a tricky business.
Just ask Jim Gantt and the Rowan County American Legion baseball team.
Nothing went as diagrammed for Rowan on Thursday night in the final game at Newman Park before a foul pole-to-foul pole reconstruction begins next spring. But its 16-15 loss to Randolph County was memorable just the same.
“It didn’t work out,” Gantt said after Rowan (32-13) allowed Post 45 to square the Area III championship series at two games apiece. The decisive fifth game is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight at Asheboro’s McCrary Park.
“But they’ll be new happy endings, so it’s not that big a deal,” Gantt added.
Randolph (34-11) overcame early 9-0 and 10-1 deficits and used seven pitchers to tame Rowan. The guests amassed 22 hits ó including six home runs and six doubles ó transforming Rowan’s pitching corps into a pitching corpse.
“We struck it well tonight,” winning coach Ronnie Pugh said. “The ball seemed to be traveling good. We’re just fortunate to have an opportunity to play these guys again.”
The game ó and the series ó seemed headed for an early finish after Rowan jumped on erratic Post 45 starter Steven Davis for six runs in the bottom of the first inning.
Rowan was threatening to run away and hide after run-scoring hits by Noah Holmes and Zack Smith put it up 9-0 after two innings.
“With a team like that, though, you can’t count them out,” Rowan’s Justin Roland said. “I think that’s what happened. We all felt we could just sit on the lead.”
Randolph began spinning straw into gold when Tyler McSwain homered in the fourth to make it 10-2.
An inning later Rowan starter Zack Simpson ó a lefty with an adequate fastball and great curve appeal ó began to wilt in the humidity. He threw 30 pitches in the top of fifth but retired only two batters and was yanked with a 10-5 lead.
“That was his problem ó he was worried about pitch counts,” Gantt said. “And he ends up throwing 30 in his last inning. It’s hard to focus on good hitters if you’re worried about pitch counts.”
Billy Veal relieved Simpson and retired the first two batters he faced. But the next four each reached safely and two of them ó Randolph’s Josh Hohn and Austin Moyer ó cracked home runs.
“I think they just finally caught up with us,” Gantt said. “It’s been that kind of series.”
Randolph pulled even in a five-run sixth, knotting the score 10-10 when Ethan Marsh blasted reliever Matt Hall’s third delivery over the wall in right-center field.
The game ó which made terrible art but terrific drama ó was back in Rowan’s hands in the last of the seventh when Roland sliced a one-out double into right field, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Philip Miclat’s sacrifice fly.
“It was crazy, the way it was going back and forth,” said Moyer, who improved to 9-0 on the mound. “Our coach kept telling us to keep battling and win every inning.”
Randolph won the eighth, when it scored four times against Hall (4-2) and Roland. In the ninth, Randolph’s Hunter Ridge and Moyer went deep against Ethan Fisher, Rowan’s fifth and final pitcher. Rowan rallied for four runs in its half, including two on Smith’s liner to right.
Rowan pulled within 16-15 on a bases-loaded walk by Russell Michalec, but Justin Mock grounded out to end the game.
“Being the last game here, it would have been pretty fitting to come up with the win,” Roland said. “We wanted to end it here tonight. Now we’ve just gotta go there tomorrow and take care of business.”
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NOTES: Pugh said Nolan Seawell is his probable starter tonight. Gantt hoped to counter with lefty Trey Holmes, but a first-inning hit-by-pitch scratched that plan. Expect a game-time decision.