Published: 12:00 AM, Sat May 01, 2010
Gray's Creek clinches Cape Fear Valley baseball title
The Gray's Creek players emptied the team's water coolers on their coaches to celebrate keeping the Cape Fear Valley regular-season title all to themselves.
Friday was also senior night at the Bears' park. While all nine of them don't usually start, they filled in nicely as Gray's Creek used an overpowering pitching performance from B.B. Browne to seal a key 7-2 victory against Western Harnett.
"We had people in positions they hadn't played all year," said Bears coach Jeff Nance, whose squad improved to 15-2 overall and a commanding 10-0 in the conference. "It was just nice to get all nine of them in there together."
Browne showed why scouts from Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays made time to watch him pitch this season. The left-hander struck out the first 10 batters he faced, finishing his seven-inning night with 17 strikeouts on 110 pitches.
With a fastball in the low 90s that breaks away from right-handed batters late, Browne had seven strikeouts in the first two innings after a batter reached on a dropped strike three. The Eagles (8-10, 5-5) managed five hits off him in the fourth and fifth innings, getting two runs in the fourth to knot the score at 2-2.
Unfazed, the UNC-Greensboro signee answered Western Harnett's two runs with three straight strikeouts. J.T. Hanington's two-RBI single to center field provided the Eagles' only offense for the night.
"You've just got to focus and settle yourself down," said Browne, who improved to 6-1 for the year. "I had to make sure I hit my spots, and I couldn't let the base runners get to me."
Gray's Creek scored five runs in the fourth and fifth innings to go back ahead for good. Western Harnett committed five errors in those frames to help the runners come across, and Tyler Herbert executed a hit-and-run situation for an RBI in the fifth.
The Eagles' miscues took the shine off a nice night for starting pitcher Robert Farrar. He scattered five Bears hits, striking out 11 and walking two in a 106-pitch, complete-game effort.
This couldn't stop the aggressive base running Gray's Creek used to plate its first two runs. The Bears stole home for the first time Wednesday against South View, and shortstop Trey Warren only needed to glance at Nance to know he'd become the second player to accomplish the feat.
The double steal also put Dylan Jackson on third. He came home when Chris Dore laced an RBI single to right field - a big base knock for a team that had only five all game and made the most of its base runners.
"That's something we like to do when a guy's on third base and the pitcher has a big wind-up," said Warren of his steal. "We always want to do that when we have somebody there."
Staff writer Paul Shugar can be reached at shugarp@fayobserver.com or 486-3513.