WALNUT COVE
Cherryville is headed back to the Class 1-A state-championship series, and the Ironmen made getting there look particularly easy against South Stokes.
The Ironmen completed a two-game sweep in the best-of-three series last night by pounding five home runs and 15 hits in a 15-4, five-inning victory.
Cherryville won both games by the mercy rule, after winning at home 14-4 in six innings on Thursday night. The Ironmen (22-7) will go after their seventh state championship and first since 2001 when they play Topsail in a best-of-three series next weekend in the Triangle area.
"It's been a long drought for us," said Coach Scott Heavner, in his third season as Cherryville's coach. "It's fantastic. We are making a lot of memories, having a lot of fun and I am enjoying the heck out of my kids."
Cherryville took advantage of a crucial South error in the second inning to score five unearned runs with two outs, and then pushed their lead to double digits with a six-run fifth inning in which Colton Ballard and Cory Parks slugged the last of Cherryville's home runs.
Each team scored two runs in the first inning, and Tyler Kloc, South's big junior righthander, was on the verge of nailing down a scoreless second when he fielded a slow roller off the bat of Ballard, and with plenty of time to make the play at first, threw wildly into right field.
Three batters later, after Tyler Buff's two-run single and Bryan DaCanal's three-run homer to left, the Ironmen led 7-2 and were well on their way.
"We make the play at first then we go out 2-2," Coach Gary Nail of South said of the error. "That error became a five-run error, but you can't make mistakes against them and that's the bottom line. They hit the ball real well, and they do a lot of good things, they really do.
"We weren't that sharp on the mound, but give them credit, they hit the ball. They hit about everything we threw at them. We couldn't get them out much."
Asked about the error, Heavner said: "When you get this deep, it's about taking advantage of your opportunities and don't give opportunities. But that worked out for us, it gave us an extra out and we scored all of those runs with two outs. That's the way the game is. One bounce here and one pitch here and both of these games could be entirely different."
Cameron Lovelace, Cherryville's starter, was pulled with one out in the second, and Thomas Bess came on in relief from center and pitched the rest of the way, limiting South to five hits and three runs.
Buff, who was 3 for 3, homered in the fourth, and Seth Freeman, who was 2 for 3, also homered when he drove the first pitch of the game from Kloc over the fence in left. Eight of Cherryville's nine starters hit safely.
Senior Ryan Gore was 2 for 2 for South, which went through five pitchers.
"The pitching was running dry and we just had to do what we had to do," Nail said. "We had heard they were a pretty good fastball-hitting team, and they were. But from what I had heard, I didn't think they hit it that good, but they did."
Heavner said that he thought his team would have something left for next week's championship series.
"We have been swinging it really well in the last week, week and a half, and we swung it good pretty much all year," Heavner said. "And in the end, we kind of hung our hat on that. We didn't shy away from anybody and whoever we faced, we were ready.
"We always answered the bell and I am just so proud of our guys. They played their guts out and we beat a really, really good team. A great baseball team."
■ Mason Linker can be reached at 727-7324 or at mlinker@wsjournal.com.
Cherryville 250 26 — 15 15 1
South Stokes 200 11 — 4 7 1
Lovelace, Bess (2) and Freeman. Kloc, Rice (3), Gore (4), Greene (5), Fiske (5) and Spaugh. WP — Bess. LP — Kloc. 2B — Thornburg, DaCanal (CV), Gore, Brown (SS). 3B — Bess (CV). HR — Freeman, Buff, DaCanal, Parks, Ballard (CV). Records — Cherryville 22-7, South Stokes 22-7
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