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On Thursday afternoon, Livengood showed the Southwest Guilford Cowboys that he is indeed ready to assume his role as one of the premier pitchers in the area. Livengood handcuffed a Cowboy’s squad that came to Wallburg as the fifth-ranked 3-A team in the state, scattering four hits over seven innings in a 4-1 victory.
“You just have to get in your head that you are going to be a leader,” said Livengood. “You just have to step up and make things happen. It’s however bad you want it that determines how good you’re going to be. Tonight I wanted it pretty bad and things turned out good.”
With the graduation of Murray White and Nick Oelker, the Panthers will rely heavily on Livengood to fill not only innings, but a leadership role as well. Livengood proved he was ready for both.
Southwest Guilford drew first blood against Ledford, peppering Livengood for a pair of hits that led to a run. A one-out walk to Jeremy Hall came back to hurt Livengood as Will Kellam drove him in two batters later with a clean single to center following a Brock Hudgens double.
From then on it was all Livengood. Over the next six innings, Livengood struck out 10 batters and allowed only three base runners — two reached after getting hit. This was a far stretch from last year when the Cowboys whipped Ledford twice.
“I came out and had a rough first inning,” Livengood said. “It was kind of hard but after then I settled down. I threw strikes and the defense behind me helped me out a lot. It seems like the first inning is always rough, but after that if I can get rolling I’ll roll a long time. You just have to throw strikes and let your defense play.
“We had a little bit different attitude coming into the game. We wanted it a little more than they did. That always helps when we play good and we come out excited.”
While not overly impressive, the Panthers still managed to manufacture enough offense to help out their pitcher. Back-to-back doubles in the bottom on the first from Patrick Koontz and Livengood tied the game at one. Two innings later, LHS parlayed two walks, a sacrifice and two wild pitches into a pair of runs as SWG starter Jeff Gilley began to struggle.
“We have a good group of veterans back,” said Ledford coach Chris Adams. “They are doing a good job of leading. They have worked hard and we are playing well. Justin threw well and we made some nice plays behind him. We got some timely hits.”
The Panthers carried their tenuous 3-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth looking to tack on one more insurance run. Again, opportunity knocked and Ledford answered. Sam Berrier led off the frame legging out an infield hit and moved to second on a wild pitch. Cory Alcon singled Berrier to third where he came home on a sacrifice fly from Luke Ledwell.
Southwest Guilford tried to mount a threat in the bottom of the seventh but Ricky Vaughn made consecutive tough plays at shortstop that kept Cowboys off the base pads.
“They are a very quality team and we knew we would have to play well to beat them,” Adams said. “That’s one of our goals going into every game is to not make an error. The kids take a lot of pride in that. Good things happen generally when you can throw and catch. It was a great effort but we still have a long way to go.”
Ledford (5-0) finished with eight hits and Livengood fanned 11.