By Mike London
Salisbury Post
CHERRYVILLE — Southpaw Connor Park put the pounding he took on Saturday in the rearview mirror and shut down perennial state champ Wilmington on Tuesday in the American Legion baseball state tournament.
A rising senior at Mooresville High, Park lasted only two innings against Asheville in what ultimately became a 12-11 Rowan County defeat, but he worked six sharp innings against Wilmington to key a resounding 10-2 Rowan County victory that kept Post 342 alive in the double-elimination event.
Rowan (29-10) has beaten Beulaville, Cherryville and Wilmington in elimination games since losing the struggle with Asheville.
Park was able to maintain his focus after the scheduled start of the game was delayed almost 90 minutes by lightning.
“Connor wasn’t himself in that Asheville game, just wasn’t pitching the way he’s capable,” Rowan head coach Seth Graham said. “But Wilmington has a lot of lefty hitters, we believed they would be a good matchup for him, and we had a lot of confidence in him.”
He justified it. Park allowed four hits and one walk while striking out four.
Park got five ground balls in the first inning, but Rowan had a shaky defensive start and handed Wilmington a run. Wilmington’s only other run came on a prodigious homer by Camden Croom in the third. It was quite a blast, but it was a solo, and Park moved on from it. He reached the pitch count limit in the sixth, and strode off Buck Fraley Field to a standing ovation similar to the one he got at Newman Park when he won the climactic game of a fierce Area III semifinal series with High Point.
Park was helped greatly by Rowan’s four-run top of the first. That took some pressure off. Cole Blevins launched the third pitch of the game over the wall, and Rowan had the lead for good. Marshal Faw gapped a triple, and Rowan loaded the bases. Drew Pegram was hit by a pitch to send a run home, and Cam Williamson delivered a two-run single.
Rowan took a 7-1 lead in the top of the second. Carter Durant’s double keyed that inning, and Rowan got three runs with the help of walks and defensive mistakes.
Rowan’s bats were mostly quiet after that as Wilmington hurlers Jess Bowling and Jake Jeffrey mowed down hitters.
But Park kept it 7-2, until Rowan broke through for three insurance runs in the seventh. Pegram, Williamson and Eli Graham got on base, and Blevins chased everyone home with a ringing double.
Wilmington had gotten Blevins out twice with the bases loaded to end the first and the second innings, but couldn’t do it a third time.
Blevins had four RBIs. Williamson had two. Graham went 3-for-3. Faw, Blevins and Williamson had two hits. Faw, Durant, Williamson and Brice Knox scored two runs each.
Cole Ludwick got the final three outs on the mound. Wilmington’s only base runner against Ludwick was an HBP, and that pitch probably was on target, nailing the Wilmington player who bowled over Knox on a play at third base in the fifth. Pegram made a catch in right field near the fence to end the game.
Rowan and Wilmington were meeting for the ninth time in a state-tournament setting. Rowan has won five of those nine.
With Wilmington eliminated, the tournament is down to Rowan, once-beaten Garner and unbeaten Asheville, with Garner and Asheville tangling late Tuesday night.
Trying to beat weather issues, Rowan will start play in Cherryville on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
