ECBL: CBA White wins weather-shortened affair

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on June 20, 2014 1:48 PM

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PIKEVILLE -- The bases were loaded and Charles B. Aycock White coach Nelson Cunningham needed his team to come through.

His team hadn't made a ground-ball out the entire game until East Duplin's Troy Blizzard hit a check-swing grounder down the third-base line.

CBA pitcher Luke Frederick hopped off the mound, scooped up the ball and shoveled it to home plate for the first out. Two pitches later, Frederick induced a line drive to second base and his defense turned a double play, which capped a 5-2 victory in an Eastern Carolina Baseball League game shortened due to thunderstorms Thursday evening.

"Frederick did a great job making an athletic play to keep the run from scoring," Cunningham said. "And (Chris) Turner did a great job behind the plate making athletic plays and we got a double play when we needed it."

In the bases-loaded jam, Turner came up big for the Golden Falcons. He blocked three pitches that were in the dirt to keep the runners from advancing.

"I like that they have faith to throw a curveball (in the dirt) with runners on third," Turner said. "I like blocking them."

After a three-up, three-down first inning, CBA White tallied runs in each of the second, third and fourth innings. The game was called just before the bottom of the fifth started.

Nolan Harrell and Jordan Gay each had two-out hits that drove in a run to get Cunningham's squad going offensively. Before Harrell's double he was in a 2-0 count and Cunningham told him from the coach's box, "If you get a pitch make sure you don't miss it."

Harrell did not.

"A lot of times 2-0 we'll have a lot of kids take that big hack and they'll pull their head out and that's what I was trying to stress," Cunningham said. "He kept his head down and hit the ball hard."

Bradley Pate drove in Chandler Matthews with a single to left field an inning later, and the Golden Falcons scored two more runs on a passed ball and a wild pitch in the fourth.

Turner added a double to go along with his strong defensively play behind the plate.

Gay got the win on the mound, giving up two runs (one earned) and striking out four in four innings of work. Frederick got the save.