Rolesville baseball romps to 28-6 win against Southeast Raleigh
With its first senior class, Rolesville’s baseball program is beginning to reap the benefits of the growing pains of a new program.
The Rams picked up a pair of wins this week over Greater Neuse River 4A Conference foe Southeast Raleigh, including Friday afternoon’s 28-6 win. Rolesville is 8-7 overall and 4-2 in the league.
Rolesville won 10-0 earlier in the week and took a 12-1 lead Friday, but Southeast scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth to keep the game going. The game got out of hand again in the top of the seventh when Rolesville sent 20 batters to the plate and scored 15 runs on nine hits, six walks, and two Bulldogs errors.
Southeast is 2-11 overall and 0-6 in the league under coach Richard Mattocks who is looking to get his program on the upswing.
“This is my first full year here and we’ve got to change things in the program,” Mattocks said. “We need to learn to play the game the right way and play hard the whole way. We came back early in the game, but in the last inning we had guys who quit. But there’s definitely been some improvement, like we’ve got a JV team for the first time in several years. I’m looking forward to the improvement over the next three or four years.”
Freshman Christian Baker got the start and win for the Rams. He’s joined in the rotation by sophomore Ras Amon, junior Alex Hart, and junior Cameron Allen.
“Today early in the game we did well in situational hitting and we were aggressive on the bases, we made them work to get us out,” Rolesville coach Jake Gross said.
Three to know
Dean Pulley, Rolesville: The senior second baseman hits third in the lineup and is a team leader as the only senior in the starting lineup. He went two for two with a sacrifice and three runs batted in Friday. Like most of the starters, he only played half of the game.
“I’m really excited about this year, with our improvement and the way this team has really bonded,” Pulley said. “Making the playoffs is our goal.”
Van Gupton, Rolesville: The speedy sophomore centerfielder got the Rams off to a great start with an infield single, stolen base and the first run of the game. He went three for four at the plate, with a double and a run batted in.
Tra’Vohn Jeffrey, Southeast Raleigh: Southeast had just five hits and Jeffrey had one, a double leading off the bottom of the fourth to start a four-run rally.
They said it
“We’re still a young team, but we are gaining maturity and baseball knowledge every time out,” coach Gross said. “We’re also playing very unselfishly. When we get a runner on third our guys know we need to get that run in somehow and they’ll do whatever it takes.”
By the numbers
190: The number of minutes it took to play game on a windy day that cooler as the game went on.
6: The number of Rolesville players who had multiple hits, including Jared Kuhns, Alex Hart, and Andrew King, Rams players who didn’t start the game. Hart ended up with three hits, including two doubles and three runs batted in
13: Six Bulldogs pitchers combined to walk 13 batters. Plus, they hit two batters.
This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 11:32 PM with the headline "Rolesville baseball romps to 28-6 win against Southeast Raleigh."