Fast start

carries WHS
By Steve Behr

Leadoff hitter Baine Martin left a calling card for Watauga’s baseball team Friday night at South Caldwell — a game-opening home run.

Martin belted a home run on the first at-bat , and the Pioneers followed with three more runs in the first two innings of the game. From there, Watauga held on to take a 4-1 victory in a key Northwestern 4-A Conference showdown.

Watauga (9-3, 6-1 NWC) grabbed a tie with McDowell for first place in the NWC. Its season sweep of the Spartans (8-2, 5-2) was the Pioneers’ first since 2004 and the second straight year the Pioneers have won at South Caldwell.

It also gave them the tie-breaking edge should the teams finish deadlocked in the standings when the season is over.

“Any time you can win in this ballpark, it’s a huge accomplishment,” Pioneers coach Pete Hardee said.

“They’ve been hard to come by. This is a hard place to win. They always pitch good and we were fortunately early to put some points on the board.”

Martin did the most damage to South Caldwell starter Cody Poarch. After Cal Hardee scored on a Trey Lowder fielder’s choice in the first inning, Martin came up in the second inning and drove in Jake Wallace with a triple.

One batter later, Martin scored on Hardee’s single, giving Martin two hits, two RBIs and two runs scored. Martin’s run gave Watauga a 4-0 lead.

“He got me down with two strikes off me,” Martin said of his home run,” I battled a couple of them off and then he threw me a curveball that kind of hung in there and I was able to drive it out.”

However, the third inning was when the Watauga scoring stopped. Poarch regrouped, found his rhythm on the mound and slammed the door on the Pioneers’ offense. Watauga had one runner reach second base in the third inning, but a double play got Poarch out of that inning.

From the fourth inning until the rest of the game, the only Watauga runner to reach base was Lowder, who got a walk. Poarch struck out 11 Pioneers, eight of them after the third inning.

“He pretty much mowed us down the rest of the night,” Pete Hardee said. “We had to hang on defensively and just do the job.”

Martin said Poarch started to use more breaking pitches to keep the Pioneers honest. It worked as Poarch returned 15 of the final 16 batters he faced.

“He kept us off balance a little more,” Martin said. “He was throwing the breaking stuff a lot more. I think he settled in, too.”

Watauga pitcher Jon Sharpe lived dangerously at times, but managed to pitch a complete game after pitching nearly five innings Monday in a win over Alexander Central. He allowed just two hits — an RBI single by Poarch in the fourth inning and an infield single Dalton Hall in the fifth — but walked eight batters.

Sharpe struck out nine batters and got out of a tricky situation in the fourth inning that saw Sharpe walk the bases loaded. Sharpe struck out a batter to get the first out and then Watauga’s defense came through when it had to. Kyle Miller threw out Jon Gray at home on a force play on a bunt, and then Miller scooped up Brock Woodie’s ground ball and touched first base to end the inning.

“It was good to know that I could be rolling some ground balls and my defense was there behind me,” Sharpe said.

South Caldwell put runners on first and second in the fifth inning, but Sharpe retired the next three batters.

He struck out the side in the sixth inning and then walked two runners in the seventh before getting Cody Penny to fly out to end the game.

“We got a great performance out of our guy, Jon Sharpe,” Pete Hardee said. “He threw 70 pitches the other night and I think the fatigue got to him in the fifth inning and he got a little wild. When you get a little tired you have to concentrate on your mechanics and I think he did that.”

Poarch walked just two Pioneers and scattered five hits, none after the third inning. South Caldwell’s defense, like it was when Watauga beat the Spartans 12-6 in March, was shaky by making four errors. However, just Hardee’s run in the first inning was unearned.

Notes: Watauga’s home game with T.C. Roberson schedule for Saturday has been postponed. No makeup has been scheduled.

Watauga 4, S. Caldwell 1
Watauga 220 000 0 — 4 5 1
S. Caldwell 000 100 0 — 1 2 4
Sharpe and Church. Poarch and Woodie. W—Sharpe (4-1), Poarch (4-1). LOB—Watauga 5, South Caldwell 9. 3B—Watauga, B. Martin. HR—Watauga, B. Martin. DP—South Caldwell 1.