The Chowan University Hawks won their first ever CIAA baseball championship this past weekend coming out of the losers bracket to beat Winston Salem State twice to win the title. Chowan will wait for the Division II NCAA Selection show on May 15th to see where they will be playing in the playoffs.
The Hawks were lead this season by ALL CIAA pitcher Cody Smith from Rocky Mount High School. Smith set a Chowan record winning nine games on the season while losing only two. He had the conference lowest ERA at 2.57 pitched sixty innings on the season. The Hawks were 26-23 on the season so Smith accounted for one third of the Hawks win. He averaged over a strikeout per inning fanning 73 on the season.
Those who remember Cody from his Rocky Mount days was he could walk the bases loaded and then strike out the side. This season he walked 38 batters which is about a half a walk an inning, While pitching for the Gryphons he averaged over one per inning so this is a major improvement for Cody.
How valuable was Cody to the Hawks? He pitched the final 3.1 innings in the winner take all game championship game in relief which was the second game of the day and the Hawks had to win both. The sophomore picked up the win by shutting down WSSU down the stretch.
Monday when the high school baseball brackets will be released the state will choose teams based on their conference finish. The Big East had a three way tie so in a three way tie breaker Rocky Mount won the tie breaker so with this week's conference tournament washed out then the regular season conference seedings will prevail.
Rocky Mount beat Northern Twice, split with Hunt which Northern beat Hunt twice making Hunt fall to third. Because Nash Central and Fike were able to get their game in the tournament in Monday night and since Nash Central won a dramatic 3-1 walkoff 3 run homer Nash Central will be seeded 4th and Fike 5th. Southern will finish at number six.
Rocky Mount 12-8 and Northern 9-11 will be home for at least one game pending winning. If both advance Northern may be on the road and Rocky Mount might get another home game. Hunt is right on the border line that if they were a high three seed and make the top 16 in the bracket they could get a first round home game but probably not with a 12-12 record. Nash Central can expect to be on the road and Fike must hope as a five seed they get in at all but they do have a winning record for a five seed in a conference 11-10.
If there is one bad thing from not playing any more this week is for Rocky Mount and Northern they would not have played for 12 days before next Wednesday the 11th rolls around..
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