Post 11 Garner

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on July 21, 2014 1:58 PM

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By ALLEN ETZLER

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After hitting the ball off the end of the bat for a fly out in an earlier at-bat, Ryan Faucette knew he didn't miss extra bases by much.

Then, when Garner Post 232 pitcher Dillon Lee threw two straight fastballs up in the zone to Faucette in the eighth inning he -- again -- just missed and fouled them off.

But Lee wouldn't get so lucky on the next pitch. He threw Wayne County Post 11's best hitter a third straight fastball and Faucette hammered it to straight away centerfield for a two-run home run.

Unfortunately for Post 11, they don't have nine hitters as hot at the plate as Faucette.

Post 11's No. 3 hitter was the only semblance of offense for Wayne County Sunuday evening as they dropped an 8-3 ballgame to Garner that allowed Garner to clinch the Area 1 East title for the second year in a row, and the No. 1 seed in the state tournament starting Friday.

Wayne County will be the No. 2 seed and will play Area 3 No. 1 seed High Point or Winston-Salem in Lexington on Friday. First pitch is at 4:30.

"Two good teams battling it out," Faucette said. "They got the upper hand. We didn't come out as good as we needed to."

Faucette had all three RBI for Post 11 in an evening where the bats never got going after the first inning.

Post 11 collected three hits off of Lee in the first inning, including Faucette's RBI-single that scored leadoff man Garrett Joyner. Wayne County would get just four hits in the next eight innings.

Lee didn't overpower the Post 11 hitters. He simply mixed his offspeed pitches and kept them off balance the entire night. He forced 14 fly ball outs, most of which were not hit particularly hard.

Lee finished with a complete game seven hitter and struck out four.

Wayne County blew up in the bottom of the sixth inning and comitted three errors to allow three runs to score and take the wind out of the sails for Post 11.

University of Mount Olive signee Tripp Atkinson drove in one of the runs on a single just one pitch after losing his grip and letting his bat fly out of play near the Wayne County dugout. After retrieving the broken bat, Atkinson simply got a new one and stroked a line drive to right.

"Defense let us down a little bit today, we made some errors and got too far down and couldn't come back. We don't make those errors we're right in that ball game."

Greg Johnson got the start for Post 11 and went four innings and gave up two earned runs in a tune-up start for the state tournament.

Kevin Williams added two hits for Wayne County.

Despite the loss Wayne County isn't discouraged by its performance in the series and coach Sherrer says the team is still taking some momentum into the state tournament.

Most of its momentum is coming by way of the mound as all of Post 11's key pitchers have been throwing well and are healthy. Reed Howell has recovered from early summer arm problems, and Tim Naughton is expecting to return from his broken ankle that has caused him to miss nearly a month.

Meanwhile Coy Barnett's outing on Saturday going seven strong innings encouraged Sherrer, and he knows he has the two pitchers he's relied on most this year -- Jackson Hayes and Greg Johnson.

"We had a lot of guys throw this series to get ready," Sherrer said. "We saved some of our arms, got a good outing out of Barnett, so there was a lot of good coming from that series.