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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

The top seed from the Northern Division, High Point, swept the Mocksville Legion baseball team in the first round of the playoffs.

The scores in the best-of-three series were 7-0 and 5-3.

High Point was a bona fide No. 1 seed after going 8-0 in division games and winning twice over No. 2 Randolph County, which went 19-3 in the regular season. Mocksville was the No. 4 seed from the Southern Division.

Although Game 1 on July 9 turned out to be a cakewalk for High Point, pitcher Aundray Russell and visiting Mocksville hung tough for three innings.

Russell, who played center field most of the time and pitched in relief occasionally this season, put up zeroes in the first, second and third.

“He wanted the ball,” coach Shaggy Wyatt said. “It was up in the air about who I was going to start. Aundray did really well. He held his own for three innings. He had them offbalance and they had several popups.”

Mocksville, though, began to unravel in the fourth. After High Point cracked a two-run homer, an error led to a third run. It kept getting worse.

“The defense was good until the fourth,” Wyatt said. “We missed three or four popups. I’ve never seen so many missed popups.”

Even though Mocksville only managed two hits for the game, it had chances in the early going to put game pressure on High Point.

“They had their ace on the mound, but we threatened in the first two innings,” Wyatt said. “We had a runner on third with two outs twice and just couldn’t capitalize. When you get a runner on third, you have to get him in against this kind of team.”

Mocksville’s hits came from Shawn Sealey and Russell. This was the first meeting of the season between Mocksville and HP.

HP 5, Mock 3

High Point’s pitcher fired a perfect game for six innings in Game 2 on July 10 at Rich Park. Mocksville came alive in the bottom of the seventh but fell one hit short of potentially tying the game.

Mocksville pushed across three runs and had runners at second and third with two outs. That’s how the game ended as High Point improved to 14-3.

Mocksville (7-14) lost 11 of its last 13 games and suffered a fourth straight losing season. Wyatt was unable to attend the game, so assistant Blake Little took over the head-coaching duties.