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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Davie’s varsity baseball team could have cemented at least a share of second place in the Central Piedmont Conference with a home win over Glenn on April 25. It didn’t happen. Instead of separating itself from the pack, it suffered a jarring 12-2 loss in five innings.

Ouch.

The outcome was surprising – Davie had won nine of 10 meetings against the Bobcats – but also not surprising. We were reminded why the CPC is a madhouse in which anything can happen when the top six teams match up.

“We just didn’t put things together,” coach Joey Anderson said. “We hit the ball hard quite a few times. Without that one inning (when Glenn scored eight runs), that game could have been totally different.”

East Forsyth has locked up first place at 11-2. Davie, Reagan and West Forsyth entered the week tied for second at 9-4. Glenn improved to 7-6 in league play.

Davie’s offense sputtered against 6-4 senior righthander Peyton Kowalski, who faced 19 batters in five innings. He permitted just three hits and walked one.

The Bobcats controlled the whole game. In the first inning, they pulled off a double steal and took a 2-0 lead on a single.

Davie got one back in the bottom of the first. Coy James doubled on Kowalski’s first offering, advanced on Parker Simmons’ bunt and scored on Davin Whitaker’s groundout.

Glenn got an unearned run in the second and later made it 4-1. Davie stayed alive by scratching for one in the fourth. Brady Marshall stole second, took third on a wild pitch and crossed the plate on an infield hit by Parker Aderhold.

But Glenn quashed any hopes of a comeback by scoring eight fifth-inning runs on five walks, four hits and one error.

Jaydon Holder came in with a 4-2 record and 1.44 ERA, having allowed seven earned runs in seven starts and eight walks in 34 innings. But his eighth start wasn’t nearly as sweet. He uncharacteristically walked four in 4.1 innings.

In fact, all three of Davie’s arms struggled, walking nine and throwing 78 strikes in 147 pitches.

On top of that, Kowalski made the offense look flimsy. James (2-3) had two of the three hits. Aderhold went 1-2 as Glenn doubled Davie in hits (6-3). Davie also hurt itself with two errors.

Although it was an upset loss for Davie, Glenn (13-10) is a dangerous squad. It had a 3-1 loss to Reagan, a 4-0 win over West Forsyth and a 3-2 loss to East Forsyth.

Davie 12, NS 3

One day after failing to flip the switch and play up to their desired level, the War Eagles were firing on all cylinders in a home nonconference game against North Stanly.

It was a solid win over a quality 2-A opponent. The Comets are 15-8 overall and 10-1 in their league.

“Before the game, we talked about how many guys we had left on base,” Anderson said after Davie improved to 13-8. “We swung the bats real well. We had real good approaches with people on base.”

Davie destroyed North in the first two innings. In a five-run first, James, Simmons, Whitaker, Aderhold, Jackson Sink and Drew Krause banged out hits. In a five-run second that made it 10-0, Davie got hits from Ty Miller, Simmons, Marshall, Sink and Krause.

Davie kept pounding away until it had 18 hits. The biggest weapons on this day were Sink (3-4) and Krause (3-4).

“We have people shifting on us because all we’ve been doing is pulling the ball, and Jackson hit two balls hard the opposite way,” Anderson said. “Drew is not flashy. He’s not hitting balls to the wall. He’s going to put a solid at-bat together every time. A lot of times he just puts it in play and it seems to find a hole. That’s Drew in a nutshell.”

Davie got two hits from Simmons (2-4), Whitaker (2-4, two runs, three RBIs), Marshall (2-3), Aderhold (2-3, two RBIs) and Miller (2-4). James (1-3, two runs) and Cooper Bliss (1-4) had one apiece.

Davie got effective pitching from both Marshall and Connor Berg. In his second start of the year, Marshall struck out seven in three innings.

Berg worked four scoreless innings with no walks and five Ks. His ninth relief appearance yielded his third win.

“When you watch Brady, you’d think he’s throwing 150 miles an hour because he exerts so much energy,” Anderson said. “Brady is a strikeout pitcher. I’m sure he sleeps well after he pitches because he goes after it and he does it every single pitch. Connor has been working on some things, and he did what he needed to do.”