Northwest 3-0 in SPC baseball season

Tanner Bigham started Northwest Cabarrus’ baseball victory Wednesday with a massive solo homer in the first inning.

After A.J. James homered in the top of the second for Mount Pleasant to tie the South Piedmont 3A Conference game 1-1, Northwest regained the lead in the bottom of the inning when Jarrin Hogue walked, Michael Mariano doubled and David Broome knocked an RBI single.

Then the Mount Pleasant defense started having problems. In an 11-3 loss, the Tigers made six errors.

“It was very uncharacteristic of Mount Pleasant,” said Northwest coach Joe Hubbard. “We tried to tell our kids it’s not their best shot. Now I was proud of the way our kids took advantage of opportunities that they gave us. That’s what we’ve got to do.”

Ten players came to the plate in Northwest’s five-run second inning, which included three hits, three walks and three errors. Winning pitcher and cleanup hitter Weston Smith’s two-out, two-run single capped the rally.

“We’ve been jockeying people around,” Hubbard said. “We finally found some things that we like. Tanner does a good job. He got us on the scoreboard with a big home run. Tanner’s a good ballplayer. He brings a whole lot to our team hitting in front of Corey (Seager). I think he’s going to see a lot of good pitches.”

That’s not always the case for three hitter Seager, who is so highly regarded that both Concord and Mount Pleasant have intentionally walked him already this season with runners on base.

The Tigers scored two runs in the top of the fourth to pull within 6-3. James stroked a two-out single and Nick Coble followed with a homer to center.

Smith went the distance, blanking Mount Pleasant over the final three innings. He struck out seven, including the side in the seventh, and did not issue a walk. The Tigers had seven hits.

“I thought he did a good job controlling a very good Mount Pleasant team,” Hubbard said.

Northwest DH Kyle Rohan hit a two-run single in the fifth and an RBI single in the sixth.

“Kyle’s been doing a good job,” Hubbard said. “We’ve had two legit on the field practices since basketball ended. Either we’ve been playing or it’s been raining. He’s one of those basketball players who came out, him and David Broome. Wow. You can’t say enough about David Broome. He’s just on fire. Kyle’s been swinging the bat good in the cages. He’s got a little tendonitis issue in his elbow, so about all he can do right now is swing the bat and do the job for us.”

Bigham added an RBI single in the fifth. Bigham, Smith, Broome and Rohan had two hits. Northwest collected 11 hits off three Tiger pitchers. Trojan leadoff batter Will Miller drew three walks.

Grayson Atwood doubled for Mount Pleasant.

Northwest is 3-0 in league games while the Tigers are 1-2. The two schools tied for first place during the regular season a year ago.

“They’re a real good team, but we beat ourselves too today,” said Tigers coach Bryan Tyson. “We kicked the ball around defensively and that’s very unlike us. So we’ll tighten that up and pitch better and play good defense. I thought we swung the bat OK at times. We just gave them too many runs.

“I think we can be pretty good. Right now we’re beat up. I’ve got Anthony Allende out for a couple more weeks. He’s got a wrist injury. He can pitch, but he can’t hit. That’s really hurting us because he’s our number four hitter. He protects Grayson (three hitter) a lot. One of our starting outfielders had Tommy John surgery. If you look over here on the bench, we’ve only got a guy or two over here. But our guys are working hard and I think once we get everybody back healthy in a week or two, we’ll be fine.”

Hubbard is coaching both the varsity and junior varsity teams, which leads to some creative scheduling for Northwest. Normally varsity games are played at one site and junior varsity games at the other school at the same time.

“We’ve just got so many cuts,” Hubbard said. “People move. The guys I’ve got out here, they’ve got jobs. So they can’t commit to being here all the time. We came down to the end and we said, ‘what do we do?’ So I said we’ll do them both. We’ve been trying to play doubleheaders, but it’s just so cold early.

“I tell you what, I didn’t realize how much of a load it would be. … We’re only two weeks into the season. It’s been a struggle for me, but if I didn’t have Jaymie (Russ) and I didn’t have Nick (Daniels) and David (Langley) and Jason (Hooks) out here helping me … The first game I coached third base and the second game they coached third base. We’re tag-teaming it.”