Rocky Mount High uses big early innings to beat Northern Nash

Rocky Mount High’s Jamar Ellis (17) hits the ball against Northern Nash on Wednesday at Rocky Mount High School.

Rocky Mount High’s Will Hedgepeth (6) throws to first base in an attempt to turn the double play as Northern Nash’s Devin Davenport slides into second base Wednesday at Rocky Mount High School.

After an arduous first inning, Rocky Mount High pitcher David Harrison trudged back to the dugout, where Gryphons coach Pat Smith told him not to worry: run support was on the way.

It didn’t happen immediately — Rocky Mount High went quietly in the bottom of the first — so Harrison set Northern Nash down in order in the second.

Rocky Mount High backed up that one shutdown inning with two runs in the second and four more in the third to break Wednesday’s game open, then survived a dicey final half-inning to beat Northern Nash, 8-3.

The Gryphons (9-6, 3-2 Big East) moved into a three-way tie atop the conference with Wilson Fike and Wilson Hunt at the midway point of the Big East schedule.

“****, when you look at where we started with those two losses (against Nash Central and Hunt) to start the conference, I think anybody would take where we are right now,” Smith said. “I’m not sure how we got here, but it’s a race to the finish now.”

Rocky Mount High knocked Northern Nash (5-9, 2-3) starter Dwight Daniels out of Wednesday’s game, which was postponed 24 hours due to Tuesday’s heavy rains, after just 2 1/3 innings. The Knights’ No. 1 starter, Tyler Barrett, has dealt with soreness in his pitching elbow over the past week, and senior right-hander Chad Nelms was out with an illness that caused him to miss most of Tuesday and all of Wednesday.

“That put us in a pretty good bind,” Northern Nash coach Bard Collins said. “I’m just not going to risk a kid’s arm like that. We hope Tyler might be ready to pitch against Hunt on Friday, but I wouldn’t say that it’s likely.”

Daniels (2 1/3 IP, 7 H, 6 R (6 ER), 3 BB, 3 K), diminutive but deceptive, began to struggle as the Gryphons’ lineup saw him for the second time in the game.

Will Hedgepeth gave Rocky Mount High a 2-1 lead in the second with a double to right-center off the glove of a diving Whit Casper, scoring Jake Philbeck and courtesty runner Battle Shannon.

In the third, the middle of Rocky Mount High’s order did its damage; five straight Gryphons reached as a one-run lead ballooned to five.

Shortstop Logan Pearce, still playing with a broken bone near the tip of his middle finger on his right (throwing) hand, notched a one-out infield single, and Harrison followed with a single to left-center. Both Pearce and Harrison advanced one base on a wild pitch, before Philbeck plated Pearce with a single to left-center that just fell in. Harrison moved to third on the single and scored on a wild pitch for a 4-1 Gryphons lead.

Forrest Bell then delivered the decisive blow with a two-run double that he lined into the left-field corner for a 6-1 Rocky Mount High advantage.

“I felt like once we saw (Daniels) once, we figured him out,” Harrison said. “Everybody was sitting on his curveball and reacting to the fastball.”

Eight of the Gryphons’ nine batters reached base at least once, and six reached base multiple times.

“Dwight hit his spots as good as he ever has for us,” Collins said. “Those boys just came to hit tonight, and they hit it all over the place.”

Harrison (5 2/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R (1 ER), 0 BB, 9 K) was pulled after 96 pitches in favor of Bell, who got the final four outs for the Gryphons — though not without a bit of drama. Bell walked four batters in the seventh and hit Casper as the Knights scored two runs, one on a throwing error on a potential game-ending double play and another on one of Bell’s walks. Josh Daniels grounded out to Pearce to end the game with the bases loaded.

“David wasn’t as sharp as he was last week at Fike,” Smith said, speaking of Harrison’s complete-game shutout in a 1-0 Gryphons win on Friday. “But there was a reason for that, and let me tell you why. That guy (the home-plate umpire) was squeezing the **** out of him. I don’t like to complain about umpires, but gosh almighty.”

Smith, tough but fair as ever, noted that Bell wasn’t getting squeezed — he just wasn’t throwing strikes. The Gryphons, though, survived to see the top of the Big East, at least for a few days.

By Foster Lander
Sports Writer for Rocky Mount Telegram

Wednesday, April 13, 2016