GREENVILLE — One bad egg may spoil the whole bunch. In North Lenoir’s case it’s been one bad inning ruining an entire game.
Added up they’ve spoiled an entire season thus far.
Hunter Harwood went 2-for-4 with three RBIs and Connor Grainger needed only 76 pitches to get through six innings as Whiteville used a big fifth inning to rout the Hawks 12-1 in a mercy rule-shortened contest Monday on Day 2 of the Pitt County Classic at Guy Smith Stadium.
The Wolfpack (12-1), who bounced back from their first loss of the year when it fell to Greenville Conley in the game prior, plated seven runs in the fifth thanks to three North Lenoir (3-8) errors that turned a two-run game into a blowout.
“It’s been the same story all year — one bad inning costs us the whole game,” said North Lenoir assistant Donnell Garris, who is filling in for longtime coach Jim Montague while he is away with family.
“It’s just the same old story.”
The Hawks, playing as the home team, played fairly decent defense heading into the fifth.
Whiteville’s Turner Brown led off the game by reaching on an error, and then a walk issued to Ben Connor by North Lenoir right-hander Tyler Smith turned into a pair of runs on Grainger’s two-run single in the first.
The next three innings saw Smith yield a pair of base hits and a walk, but defensively there was only one error made — a marked improvement from Saturday’s eight-error performance against Raleigh Sanderson — and no runs allowed.
That all changed in the fifth.
Whiteville, the defending state 2A champion, tagged Smith for five hits and a walk, and further complicated things by scoring on a pair of fielding errors and a bad throw.
By the time Smith got N.C. State signee Nathan Hood to pop out to himself to end the inning, the damage had been done and the game, more-or-less, spoiled.
“We’re just going to keep preaching and teaching and hoping it eventually clicks,” Garris said.
It was also an offensive struggle for the Hawks.
Seth Beard went 3-for-3 and had half of their hits. Caleb Baird and Brandon Moore had doubles and Landon Letchworth singled in the fourth but the Hawks didn’t score until Grainger balked in Baird from third base in the final inning.
North Lenoir loaded the bases without an out in the third on a pair of errors and Moore’s double, but got nothing out of it. It again had the bags full in the fourth, albeit this time not until two were away. Again, the Hawks scored no runs.
It wasn’t until the game was all but decided — and with two outs nonetheless in the bottom of the sixth — that North Lenoir scored on an umpire’s ruling.
The Hawks will try and right the ship today when they wrap up the three-day event back here at 5 p.m. against Durham Riverside.
In two tournament games they’ve committed 13 total errors.
“We just have to fight through it,” Garris said. “We can either find a way to get through it or have our season end way too soon.”
Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.
Whiteville 200 073—12 12 3
N. Lenoir 000 001—1 6 5
Grainger and Ni. Hood; T. Smith, Gray (6) and Baird. W—Grainger. L—T. Smith.