Back on track
By Steve Behr
 
GRANITE FALLS — Fully staffed and fully healthy, Caldwell County Post 29 American Legion baseball team broke a four-game losing streak to Huntersville and beat Post 321 11-5 at M.S. Deal Stadium Tuesday night.

Post 29 followed with an 11-3 drubbing of Huntersville at North Mecklenburg High. Post 29 (13-9) can win the Area IV best-of-five playoff series with Huntersville Thursday night at M.S. Deal Stadium.

Post 29, which lost to Huntersville Monday and was swept by the same team 3-0 in the Area IV playoffs last year, jumped out to a 9-2 lead Tuesday and never looked back. Bryan Tuttle, Hibriten’s ace pitcher the past two prep seasons who is headed to Pfeiffer next year, scattered seven hits, all singles, except for a solo home run by Jonathan Fisher in the fourth inning.

Tuttle struck out 11 batters, six of them by the fourth inning. Two of Huntersville’s runs were unearned.
“You can’t say enough about the job Tuttle did,” Post 29 coach Gary Hamby said. “We talked before the game about somebody putting the team on their shoulders and taking us where we needed to be and the two guys tonight were Ryan Tuttle on the mound and Zac Greer at the plate.”

Greer, batting ninth in the order, went 3-for-3 with a two-run home run in the fifth inning, a two-run double in the seventh and an RBI single in the second inning. He also had a sacrifice bunt in a three-run fourth inning that saw Post 29 get an RBI single from Lucas Jackson and back-to-back RBI doubles by Dalton Hall and Trent Reynolds.

It was plenty of offensive support for Tuttle, who finished with a pitch count of 123. Post 29 catcher Adam Church, who was the Northwestern 4-A Conference Player of the Year for Watauga during the 2009 season, said Tuttle’s off-speed pitches were keeping Huntersville’s batters off-balance.

“His change-up was working really well,” Church said. “His curveball was working. He hung one out to that one kid and he hit it out. Other than that, his curveball was working well and they really couldn’t catch up to his fastball. He had it all working.”

Caldwell County avenged a 9-8 loss to Huntersville in the first game of the series at North Mecklenburg High after Caldwell had rallied to take an 8-6 lead in the ninth inning. In that game, former Watauga ace Jon Sharpe and South Caldwell standout Cody Poarch combined to strike out 18 batters, but Huntersville collected some timely hits and a game-tying home run by Benji Jackson.

It was the fourth time Huntersville had beaten Caldwell. In the first round of the Area IV playoffs last season, Caldwell was swept in three games by Huntersville.

“I think way in the back of our mind there is a feeling that ‘Can we beat these guys and can we get closer to the season we envisioned?’” Hamby said. “I do think that this game could mean a lot in a lot of ways.”

Caldwell responded Tuesday by banging out 10 hits, four that went for extra bases off three Huntersville pitchers. Hunters-ville did not help itself by committing four errors in the first two innings of the game.

Three were made in the second inning that saw Caldwell score three unearned runs.

Jackson, Hall and Jon Gray all finished with two hits.

Cody Penny pitched six solid innings Wednesday, striking out 11 batters and allowing two runs. In the three games the teams have played, Caldwell pitchers have struck out 40 Huntersville batters, an average of over 13 per game.

Offensively, Church drove in four runs Wednesday night, which included a two-run home run in the eighth inning to give Caldwell a 10-2 lead. Caldwell also stole a season-high six bases in the game.

“We certainly are quite aware that we have not played our best baseball yet, but we’re also aware that we are playing a really hard-nosed group of athletes in the Huntersville team,” Hamby said Tuesday. “Whoever fights the hardest and gets the breaks will come out of the series.”