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Wilson Fike routs Gryphons after rain delays, long first inning

Posted On: Wednesday, April 27, 2016
By: Student Assistant
Rocky Mount High shortstop Logan Pearce (15) bobbles the ball against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium.

Rocky Mount High shortstop Logan Pearce (15) bobbles the ball against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium.

Rocky Mount High catcher Zach Keeter (9) catches the ball against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium. ©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

Rocky Mount High catcher Zach Keeter (9) catches the ball against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium.
©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

Rocky Mount High's David Harrison (1) pops the ball up against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium. ©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

Rocky Mount High’s David Harrison (1) pops the ball up against Wilson Fike on Friday at Flemming Stadium.
©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

 

WILSON – It didn’t take Rocky Mount High coach Pat Smith long to start chirping at the umpires on Friday night at Fleming Stadium – two batters, to be exact.

What originally was a scheduled 4 p.m. first pitch was moved back to 6, and then 8 p.m., as bands of rain moved all day through eastern North Carolina. And just as soon as Wilson Fike’s Brandon Winstead faced his first batter in the top of the first, another drizzle began; by the time Rocky Mount High took the field in the bottom half, it had turned into a downpour.

Water pooled around each base, the pitcher’s mound muddied (“Forty years, and I ain’t never seen anything like this,” Smith boomed from the dugout at one point), but Fike’s hitters didn’t seem to mind.

The Golden Demons scored four runs before a 34-minute rain delay interrupted the bottom of the first, then scored three more after the dark skies cleared, sending 13 batters to the plate in a seven-run onslaught. Winstead then cruised through seven innings of three-hit ball, as the Golden Demons moved into a tie for first in the Big East alongside Northern Nash with a 9-1 win over Rocky Mount High.

“There was no reason for us to be out there and for them to not stop that game, the game we waited two hours for,” Smith said. “That was an embarrassment to high school athletics right there. Now, that don’t excuse some of the stuff that happened – we’ve got to throw strikes – but that’s a 2-1 game from the second inning and on.”

Rocky Mount High starter Forrest Bell didn’t make it out of the first inning, retiring two of the 11 batters he faced and allowing seven runs (all earned) on six hits and three walks.

“That one is on me, all the way,” Bell said. “I mean, I wouldn’t say that I was having trouble gripping the ball too bad. You’ve got to make do. I was slipping a little bit, and it felt like the rain picked up once we got on the field, but that one was on me.”

Smith went to visit Bell after the first two Fike batters reached base, and Bell promptly retired D.J. Daniels on a fly ball to right field. But the next nine hitters, sandwiched around the delay, reached base, in some form or another – single, walk, hit by pitch, double, single, single, single, walk, single – before lefty reliever Will Hedgepeth got the third out of the inning.

“I mean, of course, the first inning was the difference,” Smith said. “I don’t want it to sound like sour grapes, but our boys just had no chance out there. There wasn’t a cleat-cleaner, or a rosin bag, or anything out there on the mound to help them out.”

That Friday’s game was played in the first place came as a surprise. Rain fell nearly all afternoon, and a tarp covered the Fleming Stadium infield until 7:20 p.m., until the downpours tapered off. Wilson Hunt canceled its scheduled game against Southern Nash on Friday, but the Fleming field appeared in good shape. That is, until the rain started again, timed up perfectly with first pitch.

If not for that slog of a first inning, Rocky Mount High – which beat Fike, 1-0, on April 5 behind a gem from David Harrison – would’ve been in the thick of things. Hedgepeth, a crafty left-hander, worked 4 1/3 innings in relief of Bell, allowing just three hits and two runs.

Hedgepeth also drove in Rocky Mount High’s only run of the night, slicing a line drive to right field with the bases loaded in the fourth inning for a sacrifice fly, scoring Jake Philbeck. Fike right fielder Hunter Lee, in the expansive outfield, did not read the ball well of Hedgepeth’s bat and reacted late to charge and dive to his left to make the catch, preventing more damage.

Rocky Mount High dropped back into a tie with Nash Central at 4-4 in the Big East, while Fike and Northern Nash have a one-game lead at 5-3 with two conference games remaining. Hunt sits at 3-4 and Southern Nash is 2-5, with that postponed game still to be played.

Northern Nash closes the season with games against Fike and Rocky Mount High. The Gryphons have games against Southern Nash and the Knights remaining.

 

By Foster Lander
Sports Writer for Rocky Mount Telegram

Friday, April 22, 2016

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