Ahoskie bows outs
Published 3:33 pm Monday, July 16, 2012
AHOSKIE – Pitt County Post 39 ended the senior American Legion playoff hopes of Ahoskie Post 102 over the weekend.
Post 39 swept the best-of-three series with identical wins of 13-3 in the opener in Ahoskie Friday and the finale Saturday in Pitt County.
Friday night, Pitt County opened the scoring with a run in the top of the second stanza.
Ahoskie responded in the bottom of the same inning.
Trey Lawrence and Brock Merritt drew walks. Lawrence then raced home on a Timmy Whitlow RBI-single to center. Merritt moved to third on Whitlow’s single and then scored on a Brandon Stifflemier RBI-fielder’s choice.
The result was a 2-1 lead for the home team after two complete.
The lead was short-lived, however, as Pitt County responded with three runs in the top of the third inning. That outburst gave Post 39 the lead for good.
Pitt County added four more in the fourth, one in the fifth and one in the sixth as they took a 10-2 lead going into the bottom of the sixth.
In that half of the inning, Daniel Merritt doubled to left-center field for Ahoskie and then took third when Adison Eure singled. A strike out and a double play ended the inning, however, and Post 39 maintained a 10-2 edge.
Ahoskie’s final run came in the bottom of the seventh stanza.
Whitlow walked and moved to second when Stifflemier reached on an error. Both advanced on a Tyler Burden groundout.
Whitlow then scored on a Marvin Harrell RBI-groundout to close the gap to 10-3.
Pitt County scored three runs in the top of the eighth to end the game via the 10-run rule after eight complete.
Billy Nixon tossed four innings for Ahoskie. Whitlow and Burden pitched two innings each.
Post 102 had seven hits. Burden, Harrell, Nixon, Eure, Lawrence, Whitlow and Daniel Merritt had one each.
Pitt County went on to end the series the next night when they claimed a second straight 13-3 win.
Ahoskie finished the season 9-17 overall.