Bats go silent in setback
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

The good news for Watauga’s offense is Adam Church returned as a designated hitter. Church missed two games after he injured his thumb while catching against East Burke.

The bad news is that even with Church’s two hits, Watauga struggled to score runs off McDowell’s Jeremy Freeman. The left-hander limited the Pioneers to five hits and McDowell walked away with a 3-1 victory Tuesday night.

Watauga (11-7, 4-5 NWC) scored its lone run in the first inning. Baine Martin and Church cracked two straight singles, but the Pioneers didn’t score until Martin scored on a wild pitch.

“Church is doing well for us,” Pioneers coach Pete Hardee said. “He got on base two times on ground balls up the middle and to the left side.”

That was the only major mistake Freeman made against the Pioneers. Watauga did not have an extra-base hit in the game, and Freeman did not walk a batter. That’s not surprising, since Freeman has walked just seven batters all season.

Freeman also struck out 10 Pioneers.

“We hit it well, but we hit it up,” Hardee said. “We’ve been working hard in practice on hitting line drives.

We’ve been hitting the ball hard, but we want to start hitting line drives and cut down on our strikeouts.

We’ve seen good pitching, but you’ve got to hit good pitching to be a good team.”

Watauga starter Tyler Moore got off to a fast start by retiring McDowell’s first three batters, but struggled in the second inning against the Titans (6-12, 2-6). Eli Miller began the rally with a triple. Brent Rowe’s single drove him in, and his courtesy runner, Brandon Johnson, scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Colby Brown.

Trey Young scored on a passed ball.

Mitch Minford took over for Moore in the third inning and got a double play to get out of the inning.

Jon Sharpe came on in relief in the fourth and finished the game by allowing two singles in three innings.

“We worked on (Moore’s ) mechanics (Wednesday),” Hardee said. “It’s not that he’s tired. He was opening up with the front side and I think we got that worked out yesterday in practice. He’s got a big start Tuesday against East Burke, so he’s got to be ready. He got a little loose with his mechanics, but we’ve tightened that back up. When his mechanics are good, he’s tough to beat.”

Watauga hosts A.C. Reynolds Friday night at 6:30 p.m. The Rockets overcame a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning in Asheville to claim a 4-3 victory the last time the teams played.

“We’ll probably see the same pitcher we saw last time,” Hardee said. “He’s good. He throws hard from a weird angle. I just hope we hit the ball a lot better.”

McDowell 3, Watauga 1
Watauga 100 000 0 — 1 5 2
McDowell 030 000 X — 3 6 0
Moore, Minford (3), Sharpe (4) and Wallace. Freeman and Rowe. W—Freeman (2-6), L—Moore (3-4). LOB—Watauga 4, McDowell 4. 2B—McDowell, Young. 3B—McDowell, Miller. HBP—McDowell, Huskins (by Moore). CS—McDowell, J. Johnson.