Friday night’s all

right for hitting
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

TAYLORSVILLE — Friday night is good to Watauga’s baseball team.

The Pioneers have been bashing the baseball against teams they play on Friday night. They did the same to Alexander Central this past Friday by cruising to a 12-6 victory in a critical Northwestern 4-A Conference showdown.

Watauga clinched third place in the NWC, giving the Pioneers a home game in the first round of the NWC Tournament, which begins next Thursday. They also hold the third seed from the conference in the first round of the state tournament, unless another team wins the conference tourney.

Watauga has scored 38 runs in its last three games played on Fridays. They beat A.C. Reynolds 14-4 last Friday and Freedom 10-0 the Friday before.

“The good part about what we’re doing right now is that we’ve got several people hitting,” Pioneers coach Pete Hardee said. “A couple of guys may have down nights, but we’ve got enough hitting right now that the guys who are hot can carry us and that’s what happened tonight.”

Watauga’s pitching held up, even though the Cougars scored three runs in the fifth inning and three more in the sixth to pull to within 7-6.

But Watauga’s offense, which scored four runs in the second inning, woke up to score five runs in the top of the seventh to clinch the victory. Jake Wallace delivered a decisive blow, a three-run home run, which gave the Pioneers a 10-7 lead.

Wallace was hitting .111 with one RBI going into the game, but went 2-for-3 with five RBIs against the Cougars. Wallace, who started in left field, hit eighth in the lineup.

Wallace worked on his hitting with Hardee after Wallace impressed the coach with his pinch-running in Watauga’s win over East Burke last Tuesday. Not only did Wallace score the go-ahead run, he also did not complain when he was asked to pinch-run instead of pinch-hitting, which was the original plan at the time.

“It impressed me that he was so prepared to do what he did the other night,” Hardee said. “He was going to pinch hit and we changed our minds and made him a pinch-runner. A lot of guys would not have accepted that well, but he’s a team player.”

Hardee said some work in the batting cage before practice helped Wallace hit the ball Friday night.

“He’s an athlete,” Hardee said. “Sometimes he doesn’t look athletic in the batter’s box, so we worked on that a little bit. We also knew that in Taylorsville, that right field — it seems like the ball flies out of right field. So, I knew that if he could get a hold of one — because he’s got a lot of power.”

He was not the only Pioneer to use the long ball to drive in runs. Adam Church drilled a two-run home run in the fourth inning and added an RBI double in the seventh.

Wallace keyed Watauga’s four-run second inning with a two-run single. He scored on an Ethan Moyer single, and Moyer scored on a Cal Hardee single, giving the Pioneers a 4-0 lead.

Cal Hardee, Church and Moyer each had three hits for the Pioneers. Moyer also scored three runs.

Jon Sharpe and Tyler Moore made sure the Pioneers would never trail, but it’s not like Alexander Central went down easily. The Cougars scored on a bases-loaded walk and then on a two-run single from Mike Daniels.

After scoring another run in the sixth, John Fox drilled a two-run home run, pulling Alexander Central to within 7-6.

“Jon (Sharpe) did a good job tonight,” Hardee said. “He hit his spots real well. He made it interesting as he always does, but he did a good job. He got us the hard outs.”