Area 3 Playoffs Thread

South Rowan-3 over Concord-2

South Rowan takes a 1-0 series lead in a great pitcher's duel.

WP- Brown
LP- Carrigan

 

Rowan defeats Lexington

Rowan County moved to (30-2) and defeated Lexington (20-10) 5-4 at Newman Park Sunday night. DC Cranford hit a 2-run homer and added a double while Corbin Shive came on in relief of Keegan Linza and Matt Hall and retired all 8 hitters he faced to pick up the win. Linza was effectively wild as he only allowed 2 hits, but walked 7 and struck out 6 in 5 innings of work.

Lexington 4 5 1
Rowan 5 7 2

Other area scores:

Concord 2
S. Rowan 3

Burlington 1
Randolph 18

High Point 6
Kernersville 9

 

Walker Snow tremendous clutch pitching to preserve the South victory. Entered in eighth with bases loaded and got two huge Ks to strand all 3. Worked around solo homer in ninth to preserve the South game one victory.

 

does anyone believe lex has a chance in this series after losing game 1?

 

Lexington's Chances

Lexington, has a chance they are a quality team and well coached. Not to sound too much like Yogi Berra, but every game they lose that chance gets smaller with the quality of Rowan's pitching staff.

Rowan has one of the deepest pitching staff I have ever seen in Legion Ball. They rival some small colleges.

Game #1 -- Keegan Linza (South Carolina signee)
Game #2-- Cy Young (Wilkes Community)
Game #3-- Lee Dupree (Catawba College)
Game #4-- Weston Church(West Rowan All State--Co Rowan County POY)

In the bull pen--Phillip Hilliard (Wingate), Corbin Shive (East Rowan, State Games), Matt Hall (All County), Alex Britt (All County), Tanner Brown (All County), Jason Ridenhour (All County), and possibly Trey Holmes who was injured at East Rowan and hasn't pitched yet this year. Holmes has been throwing on the side and was projected to be East's ace before the injury.

Rowan's offense if very good, but not ridiculously great. If Lexington can score some runs, they can make a series out of it.

 

Obviously Lexington has a chance,,,,,,, but as travis stated and I've stated all year, starting pitching is Rowan's strength. Rowan will be extremely difficult to beat in a series play, because they can bring a bonafide stud to the mound every night when most teams will get weaker on the mound about the 3rd/4th game. I also agree that offense is "not" Rowan's strength, so their chances of winning the state title are not as great in our current state tournament format where one loss can put them in a loser's bracket. Rowan's team with their depth in pitching is just geared to be awful strong in a series, it wouldn't matter who they were playing.

Btw Legionfan, I'm glad you gave Walker Snow props for his super relief job in South Rowan's win over Concord,,, I posted when I had other things going on, so there was obviously things I left out of my initial post. But as Legionfan stated, Concord was rallying in the 8th and loaded the bases with only 1 out, when Snow came in with 2 huge K's. If I'm not mistaken, Snow also hit a 2-run homerun earlier in the game which turned out to be the difference in the game. So he had a great night.

 

Gee, I'm glad to hear that Lex at least has a 'chance'. I'll let Griff & the boys know. They'll be glad to hear it.

 

Sorry UK7Dook3,,, didn't mean any slight towards Lexington with my response. The man asked if they had a chance, and my response is a "yes".

 

TJ--No offense was taken for sure. I just found it humorous that Lex split with Rowan, losing the 2nd game after leading 7-1...

And then last night Lex was ahead 4-3 in the 7th & gave up a 2 run dinger. And Lex had a horrible call at the plate that robbed them of another run.

But someone would raise the question: Does Lexington even have a chance? Made me smile. Just like I did when people said North Davidson had zero chance to beat S Caldwell...and yet they were one pitch (game one) & one swing (game 3) from sweeping all 3 games.

By the way, pitching depth diminishes if rain days get in the mix. Over a 50% chance of rain on Tues/Wed. If Watson wins tonight at home, watch out.