Davie Splits Another Conference Series
Published 12:00 am Monday, May 20, 2013
By Brian Pitts
Davie Enterprise Record
The Davie baseball team is treading water in the Central Piedmont Conference. It could be worse. Davie has not been swept by a league rival. Davie hasn’t swept anyone yet, but at least it has defeated all five CPC teams.
With four playoff berths up for grabs, West Forsyth and North Davidson are tied for first at 6-2. Davie, Reagan and Reynolds are 4-4 in the congested standings. Mt. Tabor is last at 1-7.
To finish third, Davie needs to sweep Reynolds this week and have Reagan drop one.
“We’ve chinked everybody’s armor,” coach Bobby Byerly said. “Hopefully we can look at that as a positive going into the conference tournament. On any given day we have an opportunity to win.”
Last week Davie played a home-and-home series with Reagan. For the fourth time, Davie split the two-game series. For the third time, Davie claimed game one before losing game two.
Jeremy Walker pitched Davie to a 4-2 victory at Reagan. He scattered eight hits, walked one and struck out nine while tossing his third complete game and running his record to 4-1.
“Jeremy threw great,” Byerly said. “He was very effective. His first-pitch strike percentage was amazing. It had to be pushing 80 percent. It seemed like every batter was 0-1, 0-2 and 1-2. That was the big difference over his previous start.”
Davie took control with a three-run second. Nick Boswell walked, Walker helped himself with a single and Luke Martin reached on catcher’s interference. That loaded the bases for Charlie Muchukot, who delivered a single. After Ben Beeson walked with the bases loaded, Matt Vernon provided a sac fly.
“We needed one on the road,” Byerly said. “The momentum shifted a little bit there.”
Davie was hardly on fire offensively, but it did just enough. Vernon had two of Davie’s six hits.
Beeson was 1 for 3. He could have easily been 2 for 3.
“He got robbed on probably the hardest-hit ball all night,” Byerly said. “He hit a laser at the second baseman. It knocked the second baseman down and he threw Ben out at first. It was a missile.”
Not only did Muchukot knock in the game’s first run, he reached on an error in the fifth, when Davie tacked on an insurance run.
“Charlie had a great at-bat in the fifth,” he said. “He battled, battled, battled with runners in scoring position. He finally hit a hard-hit ball to the second baseman. He kicked it and allowed a run to score. So Charlie had two great at-bats.”
Martin reached base four times in an unusual 0-for-0 night. Twice he reached on catcher’s interference. He also walked and was hit by a pitch.
“Can you believe that?” Byerly said of the catcher’s interferences. “I’ve never heard of that …