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South Point routs Indians in five innings
BELMONT - South Point High's baseball team made quick work of St. Stephens Tuesday night in a 10-0, five-inning N.C. Class 3A second-round playoff victory that took less than two hours.
The Red Raiders (17-8) advance to the third round of the state playoffs for the first time in seven years. South Point will host Kings Mountain (14-10), a 5-4 winner over Northwest Cabarrus in their Tuesday night game.
"I'm just proud of how we've played and how we've practiced in the second half of the season," said Red Raiders coach Jason Lineberger, whose team won its last five Big South 3A/4A Conference games to clinch a share of the league title. "We've had to earn it and we keep playing hard and playing well."
South Point certainly did that Tuesday against St. Stephens - or an opponent that ended the Red Raiders' 2007 season with an 11-0 victory in the second round of the playoffs.
The tables were certainly turned on Tuesday as sophomore right-hander Weston Lawing pitched a three-hit shutout and he was supported by a 13-hit offense that featured five players with two or more hits.
Jordan Edgerton led the hit parade with three doubles, including the game-ender with one-out in the bottom of the fifth. Lawing, Ryan Huneycutt, Zach Horne and Matt Darnell added two hits each, with Huneycutt slugging a two-run homer and Horne and Lawing rapping out doubles.
"We were just ready to play," said Lawing, who improved his seasonal pitching record to 7-1. "It seems like everybody is hitting their stride with the bats."
That started from the outset, as South Point scored once in the first, three times in the second and five times in the third before ending the game by way the 10-run mercy rule with a single run in the fifth.
Lawing's two-out single plated the first-inning run. Edgerton and Horne had run-scoring doubles in the second, with Horne's two-run shot to right field chasing St. Stephens starter and loser Matt Rowe.
"Teams haven't hit it like that all year long on us," said St. Stephens coach Darel Reese, whose team finished 19-8. "Their offense was really impressive."
Darnell, Harkey and Huneycutt added run-scoring hits in the third.
After St. Stephens pitching ace Jason McEachern (11-0) came on in relief to retire all four batters he faced, South Point ended the game in the fifth against another Indians' reliever.
Harkey drew a one-out walk, stole second base and advanced to third before Edgerton's hit to the right-center field gap.
"It just relaxes you when you're up by that many runs so early," said Lawing, who pitched South Point's fourth shutout of the season.
SS 000 00 - 0 3 0
SP 135 01 - 10 13 2
W - Weston Lawing (7-1). L - Matt Rowe. HRs - SP, Ryan Huneycutt.
