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Ledford’s Panthers make the trip down 1-85 for a date with the Salisbury Hornets as both teams attempt to take hold of first place in the hotly contested CCC. A week ago, the Panthers (8-2, 15-4) sat atop the league with a two-game lead on Salisbury (8-2, 15-4), but saw their advantage disappear with two losses in a span of four days.
“I think our guys know what’s at stake,” LHS coach Chris Adams said. “The good thing is that we have a healthy group of seniors and those guys have been in big games. They have been in big playoff and conference championship games before. We just have to go and play Ledford baseball.”
To make matters worse, senior ace Justin Livengood is ailing from a right shoulder injury and may not be available off the mound for this evening’s clash of front-runners. On March 28th, Livengood pitched Ledford to a 5-3 home victory over Salisbury in the first matchup between the two and also homered in the win. The right-hander hasn’t thrown in two weeks, and it’s hard to imagine Adams would shuffle Livengood out there with the conference tournament and playoffs looming, especially when there are other options available.
“We are just trying to get him rested,” said Adams of Livengood. “He has thrown the ball so much. When you get into a situation where you are playing three games in a week, you want to get everybody ready. If you advance deep into the playoffs, you play four games in five days so you can’t just go with one arm. We’ve been there and we’ve done that and we know how that works. We have a plan and we’ll just put [last] week behind us.”
Senior Ricky Vaughn, another senior right with plenty of experience, becomes the logical choice to take the hill tonight. Vaughn has had his ups and downs this year on the mound. At times, he has been very good, like when Vaughn mastered a potent West Davidson on the road in a 4-2 Panther’s triumph. Last week against Central Davidson, however, Vaughn did not have his best stuff and got saddled with a 5-1 defeat to the Spartans. For Ledford to have a chance, Vaughn needs to pitch like the former and not the latter. The Hornets, led by power-hitter Russell Michaels, possess an explosive offense that Vaughn must keep in the park. When he is on, Vaughn gets ahead in the count, mixes up his pitches and lets his defense play behind him. Like most pitchers, when Vaughn falls behind and walks hitters, he struggles. Travis Vogler has emerged as a very capable third-starter and will also be available tonight. If there was a positive to last week it was that Adams had a chance to get his staff some much-needed work heading down the stretch.
“That is one thing we tried to with our pitching,” Adams said. “We tried to balance it out so everyone threw some innings. Tuesday night, in the only conference game we’ve got, everybody’s got to be ready.”
Offensively, the Panthers, other than a 14-7 come-from-behind win at East Davidson, have not done what got them to an 11-0 CCC record before last week’s setbacks. Ledford was adept at getting the big hit whenever runners reached scoring position. Throw in the occasional homerun and the Panther’s rolled. That mojo vanished last week as Ledford managed just one run versus Central on Tuesday and four against West Friday evening.
Adams has shuffled the lineup of late, but the constant has been the middle in Patrick Koontz, Livengood and Sam Berrier. Koontz is playing his way to the player-of-the-year award and Livengood has managed to produce despite his injury. Berrier is swinging a hot bat and has been one of the more consistent hitters in the Panthers lineup. Several batters have tried batting lead-off from Jacob Scott to Vaughn to Cory Alcon with none being able to keep the job. It’s not like Ledford is short of talented hitters. Vogler, Ryan Fitzgerald, Alcon and Luke Ledwell are all very capable with the stick, and the Panthers will need them all tonight.
“We just didn’t get the big hit,” said Adams after Friday’s loss. “We stranded some runners [which was] similar to Tuesday. Our success has been getting that big hit. We’ve had a lot of games where we’ve had five or six hits with a couple guys on base and that makes all the difference in the world. We just have to battle. We probably swung at some pitches and did some things we didn’t need to do with the situation and the score the way it was. Bottom line we just have to shake it off and get ready for [tonight].”
Tonight’s winner will have the inside track to the CCC crown with a game remaining, but there will be important baseball left to play. West and Central Davidson are only a game back at 6-3 in the league and will face off tonight as well. East Davidson will have a chance to make its mark with a home game versus West and a season-finale road trip to Ledford. Salisbury must also travel to North Rowan in a cross-county rivalry.
Local baseball fans should get ready for one crazy finish to a fantastic title race.
Staff Writer Eliot Duke can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 233, or at eliotduke@hotmail.com.