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West Craven pitcher Shawn Armstrong releases a pitch in Friday’s first-round playoff game against Gray’s Creek.
Jess Huffman/Sun Journal
Eagles move on after dramatic win
VANCEBORO - Bottom of the seventh, two outs, bases loaded, go-ahead run at the plate for Gray's Creek in the first round of the 3-A state playoffs.
West Craven brings Alan Edwards to the mound. Game over.
He threw three pitches to strike out Gray's Creek first baseman Zach White and West Craven got the 5-2 win to move on to the second round of the 3-A state playoffs.
"The kid's just got confidence," West Craven coach Ryan Whitney said of the pressure on Edwards in that last out. "I don't think it bothers him though, whether it's on the plate or at the mound. I think that he wants it."
The Eagles (14-8) took advantage of a slow-starting Gray's Creek team, scoring five runs in the first inning. Bears' pitcher B.B. Brown walked leadoff batter Logan Swindell, and consecutive singles from Edwards and starting pitcher Shawn Armstrong loaded the bases. After a fielder's-choice out at home, Edwards scored on an error by Gray's Creek shortstop Tim Davis. Kyle Warmack followed up with a two-run single to right and Brett Mooring was walked to load the bases again.
"We played pretty well the last six innings," Gray's Creek coach Jeff Nance said. "That last first inning just killed us. We always start slow, unfortunately, and they hit the baseball the first inning and we didn't make some plays. We made every other play the rest of the game, but that first inning came back to bite us."
After a Forrest Warren strikeout, two more runs scored on back-to-back wild pitches from Brown before he closed the inning with another strikeout. That was pretty much the extent of the offensive production for West Craven, but it was enough to get the Eagles the win.
"We may have shut it down a little bit [after the first inning]," Whitney said. "Part of the reason we looked like we did is because the left-hander for them was throwing the hell out of the ball."
Brown finished with 11 strikeouts, gave up six hits and walked four as he got the loss for Gray's Creek (12-11).
The Bears got onto the board in the fifth inning on a Marquan Brown RBI-double down the third baseline. Brown took third on a wild pitch two batters later, but was tagged out stealing home for the third out of the inning.
They plated another run in the sixth inning on a Joe Saunders double to deep center field before Armstrong was replaced on the mound by Trey Taylor with two outs.
Armstrong finished with nine strikeouts, allowing five hits and walked two batters.
The Bears loaded the bases on Taylor in the seventh on two walks and an error by shortstop Chris Ipock, cuing Edwards' dramatic finish.
Taylor finished with two strikeouts and two walks.
Swindell finished 2-for-3 with a double, Edwards finished 2-for-4 and Warmack finished 1-for-3 with two RBIs to lead the Eagles.
Saunders, the Bears' designated hitter finished 2-for-3 with an RBI-double.
West Craven advances to play at Eastern Wayne in the second round of the playoffs on Tuesday.
Natalie Sayewich can be reached at (252)635-5668 or at nsayewich@freedomenc.com.
