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Watson Outduels Barber For 1-0 North Win
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The zeroes kept going up on the scoreboard, one after another as South’s Jacob Barber battled North’s Joe Watson, two hard-throwing righthanders, each with an imposing presence.
But a Jacob Walker base on balls with two outs in the top of the seventh gave North’s leadoff man, Alex Newman, one chance too many to break a 0-0 defensive struggle, and that’s all the star needed, doubling in the left-center gap, plating Walker and giving North a 1-0 win that will be talked about 20 years from now.
Watson struck out 11 in a four-hitter. Barber was equally impressive, striking out seven in a six-hitter. It was truly one for the ages, and no one has a deeper appreciation for dominant pitching than North coach Danny Allard, a former catcher who played college ball for Appalachian State (1993-96).
“It’s by far the best pitching performance by two young men that I’ve been involved with,” Allard said. “You don’t get any better than that. It’s one of those games where you hate one of those pitchers had to lose.
“There’s not enough I can say about Joe’s performance, and Barber made some guys struggle. I told him after the game that I was impressed and to keep his head up. Because he deserved to win that game just as much as we did.”
While North ran its record to 9-0, South slipped to 4-2. Mark the calender for May 10 at 4:30 p.m. That’s when South visits North in a tantalizing rematch.
“It’s one of the greatest games to be apart of,” South coach Rob Orrill said. “It was a pitchers’ duel from the very beginning ... subscribe to the Davie Couny Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.