Bertie baseball bags second win
Published 9:35 am Thursday, March 7, 2013
CHOCOWINITY – Though they have yet to christen the new baseball season on their home field, Bertie High picked up its second road win of the season Monday afternoon with an 11-3 rout at Southside High School.
The Falcon bats banged out a dozen hits in the romp with the biggest stick of the day belonging to freshman Matthew Weaver who went four-for-four.
Sophomore righty Alex Harmon picked up the win on the mound hurling five and two-thirds innings of two-hit baseball with a dozen strikeouts. It was his first win of the year. Weaver pitched an inning-and-a-third while sophomore David Watford mopped up in the bottom of the seventh.
“I was very pleased with the effort,” said veteran Bertie coach Randy Whitaker. “Alex pitched a great game and I’m happy to start the year off with two wins, especially on the road.”
The Falcons won their season opener last Friday in Robersonville with a 5-2 win over South Creek. Their home opener yesterday against Bear Grass Charter School was postponed until April 24 due to inclement weather.
Leadoff batter Javier Pagola continues to stoke the engine of the Falcon machine. He is now five-for-eight in Bertie’s first two games.
Bertie got single runs in the first and third innings to lead it 2-0 going into the top of the fifth before they exploded for seven runs.
In that frame Watford led off with a walk followed by a single from Pagola and the inning’s second walk was issued to Adam Cowand to load the bases. Cody Matthews then delivered a one-out single to plate a pair of runs and up the Falcon lead to 4-0. Michael Scott followed next at the dish and he belted a sharp liner to left field scoring another run to make the score 5-0. Two more runs scored on a wild pitch and an error to set Bertie up with a nice 7-0 lead with more of the inning still to play. On his second time thru the line-up Matthew Weaver drilled a double down the third-base line that sent a couple more home and Bertie finished the inning with a 9-0 lead.
Harmon surrendered a run in the bottom of the fifth to the Seahawks to make it 9-1.
In the top of the sixth inning the Falcons strung together back-to-back base hits to grab a couple of more runs. Harmon led off with a single up the middle and went to second on a wild-pitch. Matthews followed him with his second safety of the game, moving Harmon to third. Michael Scott then produced his second RBI of the afternoon with a groundout to score Harmon. Nicholas Forward later produced a two-out base hit for the Falcons’ final run of the night and an 11-1 score.
Bertie gave up two runs in the bottom of the sixth, but still came away with an easy eight-run win.
The Falcons (2-0) will attempt to open the home portion of their season tomorrow (Friday) with a return date against South Creek of Robersonville if their Windsor field is playable.