LA GRANGE — Things just keep going south for North Lenoir’s baseball team.
Jacob Hollingsworth went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and Jacob Sasser was solid in relief as Southern Wayne rallied to down the Hawks, 6-4, in nine innings on Friday.
The Saints (7-2, 3-2 Eastern Carolina 3A) plated a pair in the top of the final inning to send North Lenoir to its sixth straight loss.
“We’re just not a very good baseball team right now,” said longtime Hawks coach Jim Montague. “Believe it or not, all the things we’re not doing during a game we work on all the time in practice.
“It’s very frustrating.”
Two days removed from giving up a three-run lead in a loss at South Lenoir, the Hawks (1-6, 0-5) got on the board with two runs in the first then added another run to go up 3-1 in the fourth but couldn’t hold it after a tough-luck fifth inning changed the course of the game.
Garrad Whitfield led the frame off with a walk, then Thomas Kelly got on base on an error. Clayton Cashwell laid down a bunt to move the runners over, but put it in a spot where neither left-hander Landon Letchworth nor catcher Caleb Baird could get to it to load the bases.
Kevin Williams’ chopper was fielded by Letchworth, but his throw home was wide of Baird’s glove, allowing Whitfield to score on Letchworth’s second errant throw of the inning. The Hawks got their first out on a fielder’s choice at second by Sasser, but Kelly crossed the plate to tie it at 3.
Another fielder’s choice produced the second out, but Hunter Barwick doubled to the fence in center field to score Sasser and put the Saints up 4-3.
Letchworth got Cole Barwick to go down on strikes to end the inning, but by the time the dust cleared what little drive North Lenoir had it lost.
“It’s the little things that are hurting us, like throwing a ball to first or fielding a baseball cleanly,” Montague said.
North Lenoir tied it up in the bottom of the inning on a bases-loaded walk by Brandon Moore, and the teams played to a stalemate until the ninth.
With Letchworth’s day over at the completion of regulation, the Hawks elected to put the ball in the hand of right-hander Seth Beard, who singled and scored a run in the fourth.
Beard worked his way around a leadoff hit and bunt single in the eighth, but he couldn’t shake a leadoff walk and hit-by-pitch in the ninth.
Hollingsworth doubled to the gap in right-center that scored Kelley and Cashwell, then Sasser retired the Hawks in order in the home-half of the ninth to end a 2-hour, 46-minute test of will.
Sasser struck out five, walked one and allowed a hit in 3 2/3 scoreless innings in the win.
“Teams used to hate playing North Lenoir. Now teams are going to hate playing North Lenoir because they don’t want to be the first one to get beat by us,” Montague said.
Dylan Puchalski homered to left in the first for the early 2-0 lead, then Baird scored Beard on a comebacker in the fourth to give North Lenoir a 3-1 advantage it couldn’t hold.
Letchworth, done in by three errors, gave up four runs, one earned, on seven hits. He walked one and struck out seven on 96 pitches, 68 for strikes.
The last-place Hawks will try and end the skid on Tuesday when they travel to sixth-place Eastern Wayne.
Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.
So. Wayne 010 030 002—6 10 2
North Lenoir 200 110 000—4 7 3
Wendorf, Hayes (4), Sasser (6) and Hollingsworth; Letchworth, Beard (8) and Baird. W—Sasser. L—Beard. HRs—SW: None. NL: Puchalski.