Electric second inning, crowd support push Myers Park past Jordan High in 4A playoffs
After a dominant second inning, the Myers Park defeated Jordan High 9-1 Tuesday in the first round of the NCHSAA state baseball tournament.
The playoffs began after graduation and at least a week after the season would normally be over. The NCHSAA pushed all sports back on the calender due to the pandemic.
Tuesday, Myers Park’s players and coach said they were just happy to be playing in the postseason.
“Hey, we’ve worked through adversity all year,” Mustangs head coach Erik Foor told his team before the game. “We’ve battled through injuries, we’ve battled through a pandemic. Why not keep ‘next man up’ mentality and keep it going moving forward.”
Playing before a large crowd that traveled a few hours from Charlotte, the Mustangs did just that.
After a scoreless first inning, the Mustangs broke the game open in the second.
Mustangs sophomore outfielder Daniel Shuta knocked in Owen Williams with a two-run home run. Immediately after that, senior outfielder Luka Barbaryka hit another home run to the exact same spot.
Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, an errant pitch allowed junior outfielder Russell Golembe to steal home. Before the inning ended, Myers Park scored six times.
Foor said the big crowd played a big role.
From the opening pitch, the Mustangs fans cheered and never stopped cheering.
“We were allotted 55 tickets, and I think we had 55 people here,” Foor said. “We come from a good community that supports us well and hats off to them too. They’ve been here for us all year and they’ll keep going forward with us.”
The Falcons performed better defensively in the next inning, not allowing a single hit and getting off the field quickly. Still in a 6-0 hole, they did not score in the bottom of the third.
Jordan got on the board for the first time in the fourth inning, as senior outfielder Carrington Williams, a Chowan College commit, hit a single to score sophomore infielder Caiden Chilausky, bringing the score to 6-1.
After holding the Mustangs scoreless again in the fifth inning, the pitching of senior Luke Metzler kept Myers Park ahead and stymied the Falcons.
in the top of the sixth, the Mustangs managed to end their scoring drought when senior catcher Harrison Bobbitt got a hit, bringing junior infielder Owen Anderson home. Hasner extended the lead by singling to first base and allowing Bryant to score.
As the catcher attempted to throw out a player stealing a base, senior outfielder Massie Flippin managed to steal home, giving Myers Park its final run.
“We wanted to have a home game because our home crowd is so amazing and so loud, and we feed off that,” Myers Park senior pitcher Luke Metzler said. “The fans were great, the dugout was great. We had tremendous energy and, on the mount, I just fed off that all night. It was great.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2021 at 10:02 PM.
