Huskies rally past Wildcats for rare playoff berth
GASTONIA - Matt Crisp's whirling fist pump after the final out told you all you needed to know about Hunter Huss High School's baseball season Monday night.
"It was just a big relief," Crisp said after pitching a four-hitter in Huss' 3-2 tie-breaker playoff victory over visiting North Gaston. "It was a load off my shoulders, off all of our shoulders, really. We've been waiting for the playoffs around here for 15 years. It was all everybody in school was talking about today. And now we're going."
Huss (6-17) will be going after winning a playoff for the third and final automatic Class 3A playoff berth in the Big South 3A/4A Conference. Its reward is a trip to the Asheville area against the Mountain Athletic runnerup (either Asheville or T.C. Roberson), but the Huskies didn't care how they got there as long they are there.
"It feels so good," said longtime Huss coach Terry Radford, who guided the Huskies to their last playoff berth in 1993. "We get to get on a bus and see what the playoffs feel like."
To be sure, it was not easy.
It took a three-run rally in the sixth to erase a 2-0 North Gaston lead.
But the Huskies, who left 13 men on base and had one runner gunned down at the plate, finally reached Wildcats right-hander Andrew Withers with three infield hits, a walk and Sam Picklesimer's game-tying two-run single to center in their winning rally.
"It was getting towards our last at-bat," said Picklesimer, one of eight Huss seniors. "I had to do what I could do to get us in the playoffs."
Matt Williams opened the inning with an infield hit. After another infield hit by Franky Charlton and a walk to Brock Sanders loaded the bases, Picklesimer came to the plate. The left-handed batter worked a full count and fouled off four pitches before stroking Withers' 10th offering in the at-bat up the middle.
After Withers got one out as Picklesimer stole second to put runners on second and third, Ferry's one-out infield hit was the eventual game-winner.
Ferry also worked Withers to a full count and had fouled off one pitch before his high-hopping infield grounder was snagged by leaping North Gaston shortstop Zade Denton. But when Denton made the transfer of the ball to his throwing hand, it squirted free and Sanders scored from third with the winning run.
"I was just running as hard as I could," said Ferry, who admitted he didn't watch the play after he hit the ball. "All I was thinking was, ‘Put the ball in play and score the run.'"
The loss made a hard-luck loser of Withers, who had beaten Huss twice in the last month and scattered nine hits, four walks and two hit batters while striking out three.
"I can't ask any more of my pitcher," North Gaston coach Jesse Martin said of Withers. "He did all I asked. We just couldn't make the plays we needed to win."
Given that Martin inherited a team with not a single pitcher with any varsity experience, the ending to the 5-14 season was bittersweet.
"Bitter more than sweet," Martin said. "Because it was there for us."
North Gaston tallied its two runs on a two-out fourth-inning throwing error, as Caleb Chandler scored from third and a hustling Justin Parker scored all the way from second base on the play.
Withers, Parker, Denton and Dylan White had the Wildcats' four hits.
For Huss, Charlton had two hits and Crisp finished with a four-hitter while striking out six and walking three.
NG 000 200 0 - 2 4 2
HH 000 003 x - 3 9 3
W - Matt Crisp (3-7). L - Andrew Withers (3-3). HRs - none.
