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| Whit Merrifield is greeted after opening the CPC Tournament final with a home run. - Photos by James Barringer |
The fifth-seeded War Eagles battered Mount Tabor’s Michael Velten for 14 hits in an 11-1 romp in the first round. They belted three homers off top-seeded West Forsyth’s Greg Holt in a 13-10, nine-inning thriller in the semifinals. Taking down Velten and Holt while scoring 24 runs was borderline amazing, considering Davie had scored 13 runs in four games against Tabor and West in the regular season.
Davie, however, was overmatched in the final last week at West Forsyth. North Davidson’s southpaw ace, Zach White, threw a three-hitter to squash Davie’s Cinderella run 6-2.
A win would have catapulted Davie to the No. 2 seed and created the possibility for two home playoff games. Instead Davie succumbed to White, a 6-2, 230-pound senior with an 11-2 record, for the third time this spring.
“It’s too bad we can’t play one more game at Rich Park,” Davie shortstop Whit Merrifield told the Salisbury Post.
Davie fell to 18-8, while North (20-7) celebrated its first CPC title.
The War Eagles came in with eight wins in their last 10 games, and their good vibes continued when Merrifield rode the game’s fourth pitch, a 1-2 fastball, over the right-center fence for a quick 1-0 lead.
“With two strikes, I’m going to choke up and try to go the opposite way,” Merrifield said after hitting his second homer in two games. “He just got it up and I got the fat part of the bat on it.”
Davie regained a 2-1 lead in the second. Brandon Stewart walked and later scampered home on a wild pitch. But North’s Jay Yount tied it again with a solo homer in the last of the second.
The War Eagles’ mood began to darken when North scored two runs in the fourth, and it was all but over when it pushed across two more in the fifth.
Heath Boyd’s two-out single in the third proved to be Davie’s final hit. White retired the last 10 and 12 of the last 13.
“We were confident we were going to hit White tonight,” Davie coach Mike Herndon said. “We’d seen him twice before, we knew he’d thrown a lot of innings and we thought he might be tired.”
Boyd went 2 for 3. Stewart drew a pair of walks. But Davie went 0 for 16 in the Nos. 3-9 holes as White faced just 24 batters.
“When he needed a strike, he could always get one,” Merrifield said. “He just located real well. Even if you’re not throwing hard, if you can locate that’s all that matters ... subscribe to the Davie County Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.