Great Effort Comes Up Short

Tonight the Rocky Mount Gryphons facing the top team in the Big East gave their best effort of the season but when the Gryphons failed to score the winning run in the bottom of the seventh the Fike Golden Demons took advantage and win in eight innings 3-2.

Gryphon Starter Cody Smith gave the Gryphons all he had going six inning struck out 10 allowed only four hits while walking six batters.  The lone run charge to Smith scored in the third after he had walked Ryan Page and he came home to score to give Fike a 1-0 lead.  The Gryphons lead 2-1 when Smith sat out the seventh inning.

The Gryphons tied the game in the bottom of the third after Logon Smith reached on an error and scored on a Forest Bell Single. The Gryphons took the lead in the fifth when Logan Smith single was sacrificed to second by Bikembe Kearney and scored on a single by Ben Yates got Smith to third and the left fielder bobbled the ball allowing Smith to score.

The Gryphons had chances in the fifth to add to the lead with runners on every base and a line drive was snatched out of the air and the runner on second was called out at second. The sixth the Gryphons had first and third with one out and failed to score. The Gryphons loaded the bases in the seventh and failed to score.

Fike down 2-1 batting in the top of seventh got a lead off single by Ryan Page to greet reliever Blake Helms and the very next batter Charlie Vaughn delivered a triple down the right field to tie the game.  Fike failed to score another run on a base running error at third when Griffin Parker hit a ball toward second with the infield in.  The runner held up on first contact and after Josh Carter made a great stop threw the runner out at home who broke home late.

Fike scored in the top of the eighth on one hit and two walks to load the bases and scored on a single by Ryan Page. Even in the eighth the Gryphons had a chance to tie or win it with runners on second and third but failed to score with only one out.

Fike takes the lead in the Big East after Nash Central's Tyler King pitched a two hit  3-1 victory over Northern Nash.

Heard some great news tonight at the ball park.  The Washington National have promoted The Gryphon's Brian Goodwin to the Triple A Syracuse Chiefs which will mean Brian will be coming to Durham this season as long as he is not promoted to Washington by then.

Another Day Another Big Game

Week two of conference in Big East baseball season is upon us and week two is always the week of decision.  Northern Nash and Fike are the only two teams to come away from conference play still unbeaten.  The other end of the spectrum. Rocky Mount and Southern Nash are the only two teams without a victory.  Nash Central and Hunt are right in the middle riding the fence winning one and losing on in the opening week.

Tuesday has Fike making a road trip to Rocky Mount.  Having won both games last week Fike is the top offensive team in the league.  Should they win at Rocky Mount a possible battle Friday with Northern Nash.  Rocky Mount is at that cross roads where they need to win desperately.  A lost and they will be at the point where they can't really do anything but win out to even get themselves back into playoff talk.

Northern Nash host Nash Central tonight and a win Northern will be playing for first place in a major sport for the first time in several years Friday night.  Think about it. Football has been down for a few years but is on the rise.  Basketball has also fell into the pit of  non winning for a while and baseball hasn't been a player in the playoffs since their eastern final run what year was it 2007.

So far the first ten games of the season Northern's pitching and defense has held everyone at bay.  Their question mark is can they score enough runs to make it easy for their pitchers?  You figure The Bulldogs will throw their best Tyler King which probably means a low scoring game.  A 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 type game favors the team that can score.  So far in two conference games the Bulldogs have scored 9 runs while the Knights have scored but 5.  Sounds like a 2-1 game to me.

The third Big East game has Hunt with a win and a loss playing at Southern Nash looking for some runs as even with two losses they have given up only four runs.  Hunt  looks as though they might get four or five per game but Southern must hold Hunt in check and find a way to score themselves.

Southern like Rocky Mount doesn't want to find themselves three games behind first after the first three games.  Just found out today that TV will be at Rocky Mount so I will be doing PA and play by play together Tuesday night .