North Duplin baseball fans watch from the top row of the football stadium Friday evening. The Rebels dropped a 3-1, nine-inning loss to Falls Lake Academy in round two of the N.C. High School Athletic Association Class 1A baseball playoffs. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin’s Tanner Kornegay dives back to the bag as Falls Lake Academy first baseman Jacob Watson awaits the pickoff throw during first-inning action Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin’s Hunt Pate gets caught stealing second base by Falls Lake Academy freshman shortstop Kace O’briant on Friday evening. The Leopards stunned the Rebels, 3-1 in innings. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin’s Garris Warren scoops up an infield bunt attempt during third-inning play against Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. Warren’s throw didn’t arrive at first base in time. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin’s Hunt Pate scored his team’s lone run in a 3-1, nine-inning loss to Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. The Rebels concluded the season 21-4. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin’s Hunt Pate scored his team’s lone run in a 3-1, nine-inning loss to Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. The Rebels concluded the season 21-4. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin second baseman Hunt Pate attempts to tag out Falls Lake Academy’s Kace O’briant on a third-inning steal attempt. O’briant was safe on the play. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
Pitcher Erik Rosas recorded 12 strikeouts in eight-plus innings during his final game with North Duplin on Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin pitcher Erik Rosas watches his teammates attempt a ninth-inning rally Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin second baseman Hunt Pate throws to first and records an out during middle-inning action against Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin first baseman Tyler Johnsey waits to record an out defensively against Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin catcher Austin Duff blocks a pitch in the dirt on a bunt attempt by Falls Lake Academy designated hitter Carson Bowers on Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
North Duplin right-hander Erik Rosas warms up against Falls Lake Academy on Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
By RUDY COGGINS
prepswriter2@gmail.com
CALYPSO — Emotions flowed freely from North Duplin’s players during their post-game huddle Friday evening.
Tear-stained, solemn faces stared off into space at times while head baseball coach Colton Chrisman choked back his own passions about another second successful season on the diamond.
A season of aspirations with one of Colton’s most-talented teams ended with a 3-1, nine-inning loss to Falls Lake Academy in round two of the N.C. High School Athletic Association Class 1A playoffs.
“We just didn’t play our best ball,” Chrisman said. “When you’re in a single-elimination tournament, one bad and your season is over. Our bats went cold and it was the wrong time of the season for that.”
Coming off a mentally-exhausting 12-inning win just three days earlier, fourth-seeded North Duplin couldn’t replicate that late-game magic again.
The Rebels plated a first-inning run on Austin Duff’s sacrifice fly that scored lead-off batter Hunt Pate. However, Chrisman’s team left the bases loaded.
Falls Lake right-hander Blake Fletcher yielded just two hits and his defense put up eight consecutive zeros on the board from that point. The 13th-seeded Firebirds (11-5 overall) turned a momentum-killing, fourth-inning double play. Catcher Carson Gregory gunned down a runner to end the fifth.
Fletcher retired the last 10 batters he faced.
“I think everybody was hoping someone else would do the job [offensively],” Chrisman said. “No one said ‘I’ve got it and will put the team on my back.’ Instead, it was ‘you go out there and do it.’ That [mentality] didn’t work out in our favor.”
North Duplin right-hander Eric Rosas, in his final prep start, permitted two runs (one earned) on four hits, walked one and retired 12 Firebirds on strikeouts.
Falls Lake tied the game at 1-1 in the third inning.
Gregory plated lead-off batter Kace O’briant with a single that kept the bases loaded. Rosas notched three consecutive strikeouts – on nine pitches – to escape further damage.
Including the third inning, Rosas sat down 19 of the next 21 batters he encountered. He threw 84 strikes during his 107-pitch outing that lasted 8 1/3 innings.
“He has struggled here of late, but tonight he was tremendous,” Chrisman said. “He was his old self.”
With one out and a runner aboard, Esteban Santos Clark toed the rubber in the top of the ninth.
First baseman Tyler Johnsey chased a grounder by Isaac Smoak that glanced off his glove. The base knock moved Jacob Watson, who singled to start the inning, over to third base.
Watson notched the game-deciding run on a wild pitch.
Smoak raced home on Avery Good’s single that bounced into the right-center field gap to make it 3-1. Smoak attempted to stretch his RBI knock into a double, but was shot down at second base.
“We teach our guys to get every ball they can,” Chrisman said. “We have an athletic infield, so we tell them to go after it even if it takes you into someone else’s [defensive] area. The ball just tipped off his glove and kicked away from Hunt.”
Fletcher notched the first two outs in the Rebels’ ninth.
O’briant induced a game-ending grounder and denied North Duplin a second straight third-round appearance.
Freshman Holden Williams emerged as the Rebels’ offensive leader with two hits and a stolen base. Pate and Tanner Kornegay each provided one hit.
Johnsey led the defense with 13 putouts, while Duff recorded 11.
North Duplin (21-4) won its second consecutive regular-season crown and fourth overall since 1985. Chrisman’s club repeated as the Carolina 1A tournament champion.
Chrisman will lose four seniors to graduation – Rosas, Johnsey, utility player Richard Noble and Billy McCoy.
“What we’ve created here at North Duplin is something great,” Chrisman said. “Before I got here, I don’t know if people were really scared to play North Duplin. Now, these past two years with our juniors and seniors, they were a big part of building this program back to what it could be … what it should be.
“There is a rich tradition of baseball at North Duplin and we have kind of put it back on the map. That’s just a testament to the kids’ hard work and this year we took that next step.”
