By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
CHINA GROVE ó The temperature and the crowd were suitable for football.
Carson’s baseball team played the biggest game in school history Friday night in front of swarms of Standing-Room-Only fans who wore parkas and mittens and sipped hot chocolate.
The Cougars aren’t bad, but there’s still a gap between them and East Rowan, last season’s 3A runner-up. The Mustangs won the NPC matchup 9-1, as hurlers Cody Laws and Preston Troutman combined for nine strikeouts.
“I just hate we didn’t play better with that crowd,” Carson coach Chris Cauble said. “The biggest we’ve ever had here. But one step at a time, I guess.”
East (5-0, 3-0) didn’t bruise many balls, but the Mustangs found holes with timely hits and their speed pressured the Cougars (4-1, 2-1) into mistakes.
“Speed is a big part of what we do,” East coach Brian Hightower said. “The other night at West Rowan, we couldn’t do stuff with the wet field conditions, but tonight we could get a little traction. There were several plays where we hurried guys into making errors. Still, Carson’s a good team. We know they didn’t play their best game tonight.”
Hits by Austin Shull and Ethan Fisher against Carson starter Jesse Park, plus a wild pitch, put East ahead 1-0 in the second.
East’s five-run third decided it. It began with Carson shortstop Gunnar Hogan bobbling a grounder with East leadoff man Robbie Ijames roaring down the first-base line. Back-to-back walks to Ben DeCelle and Noah Holmes filled the bases, and Cauble replaced Park with Will Misenheimer. Holmes’ at-bat was key. He took a 3-2 pitch that was just off the plate.
“East swung the bats a little better than I thought they would, but what was really impressive was the discipline their hitters had,” Cauble said.
The first man Misenheimer faced was cleanup hitter Zach Smith, and Smith lashed the first pitch he saw past the third-base bag for two runs.
“We came into it knowing we couldn’t take Carson lightly ó I mean, those guys beat Mooresville,” Smith said. “I went up there just trying to get something started, trying to get us a run home. I got a fastball on the first pitch and was able to pull it.”
David Ijames followed with a good piece of hitting, punching one through the right side past diving infielders to score two more. That made it 5-0, and Ijames surprised the Cougars by never stopping and motoring to second base.
After Ijames escaped a rundown after he was picked off, Fisher singled him in to cap the big inning.
“Just gave ’em too many outs that inning,” Cauble said. “They made us pay for it.”
That was plenty of run support for Laws, a tall right-hander, who has been great with ace Corbin Shive still limited to playing first base (although Shive is close to returning to the mound). Laws allowed three hits and worked into the sixth before handing the ball to Troutman. Laws already has three wins and a save.
“I was struggling to find my release point in the bullpen, and it was pretty cold,” Laws said. “Coach was worried because I threw 22 pitches in relief at West Rowan, but I was able to get a lot of groundballs tonight with changeups and curveballs.”
Carson broke up the shutout in the sixth on Joseph Basinger’s RBI single.
“We’d never been 4-0 so maybe we got the bigheads a little,” Basinger said. “We’ll get back to doing the blue-collar things that got us to 4-0.”