Long Ride Home

The expectations of a second state title in three years came tumbling home in the bottom of the seven inning tonight in Shallotte.

West Brunswick Pitcher Jay Gause fires a one hitter a two run homer in the first inning from Collins Cuthrell after Spencer Bell had walked to give Rocky Mount a 2-0 lead.

Benton Moss pitched six inning but tonight the Trojan batters sprayed hits all over the field. Nine of their ten hits came off Benton Moss who left the game after six in a 2-2 tie.

WB scored in the bottom of the first, bottom of the sixth and the bottom of the ninth with single runs to advance to round three with a 3-2 victory over the Gryphons.

Despite being hit all over the place Moss kept the Gryphons in the game with nine strike outs and a couple of walks. Parker Helms made a gem of a defensive of a play after West Brunswick got three hits in the third, Helms threw a runner trying to score out at home to keep the Gryphons ahead 2-1.

The top of the seventh brought on an incident in which Michael Whitehead hit a foul ball and Benton Moss was tossed out of the game. Kent Cox brought Hobbs Johnson in to the bottom of the seventh where three straight runners reached base on a hit , a walk , then a intentional walk. A ground ball was hit to Matthew Berry at first but by the time the throw got home the winning run had scored.

If you have read any of my blogs over the past week I was concerned about the Gryphon hitting and tonight despite giving up ten hits the pitching kept the Gryphons in the game but the bats never got going against an extremely good Jay Gause.

It sure will be a long ride home tonight for the Baseball team.

This makes twice this season a Gryphon team has ended it's season in the playoffs at West Brunswick. Girls basketball lost by four in the second round during basketball season.

If you watch the news tonight on Channel Five then you saw Nash Central's Jasmine Williams win this week's Extra Effort award from Tom Suitor. Jasmine will be competing this weekend in the state track championships where she just might be the favorite to win the high jump.

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have friends. Gene Taylor has be feeding me an inning by inning recap of the Gryphon game. Gene thanks a million. I owe you one.