The North Moore baseball team rushes to congratulate Austin Patterson for his walk-off double to secure a 6-5 win over Jordan-Matthews at home Tuesday.
The North Moore baseball team rushes to congratulate Austin Patterson for his walk-off double to secure a 6-5 win over Jordan-Matthews at home Tuesday.
With a host of several players returning from last year’s Mid-Carolina Conference title team, North Moore junior Austin Patterson didn’t have too far to look for guidance before he stepped into the batter’s box during a high-pressure situation late in Tuesday’s home conference baseball game against Jordan-Matthews.
It’s the dream situation that every baseball player dreams to be in: a runner in scoring position with two outs and the game tied. Patterson was right there in it, but he had some guidance from a pair of seniors giving him a tip that led to a 6-5 walk-off win for the Mustangs.
Senior Gabe Purvis, who had just scored the tying run, quickly fell to the North Moore junior’s ear.
“I told Austin in the dugout, ‘Don’t sit on a curveball. Hit that first pitch fastball.’ And he did it,” Purvis said.
“I remember talking to Ty (Allred) down here at the end of the bench and he was telling me the same thing about the fastball,” Patterson said. “I get up there and (the pitcher) calls time, and I get my mind right really.”
Patterson roped a double to left center field, scoring Elliott Furr from second base for the second run of the bottom of the seventh inning.
North Moore (6-0, 4-0 Mid-Carolina) knew that the showing in the last at-bat required execution, mixed with a little bit of magic. Purvis launched a double to center field with one out to start the inning.
“I had a pretty good feeling we were going to win. We had the two, three, four (batters) up,” Purvis said. “When I got in the box, I was trying to hit it out; hit it as hard as I can, and I got a double.”
Ethan Dunlap struck out behind him, leaving the Mustangs with one out away from falling to Jordan-Matthews (1-3, 0-1 Mid-Carolina). Furr popped up to shallow left field, and a loss seemed nearly certain, until the Jets’ shortstop tripped up while backpedaling for the out, and the ball fell to the outfield grass. Purvis raced home, and left Furr standing on second.
“Everybody’s heads are up, so we get that tying run, and Austin comes up and absolutely nukes one in the gap,” North Moore coach Billy Kennedy said.
Patterson’s third hit of the game drove home his second RBI, this one the deciding run.
“I felt like I had to do something about it. I knew that if I wasn’t going to do something about it, that it was going to be the end of the game,” Patterson said. “I was just calm and did what I needed to do.”
In the last two seasons, close games like that haven’t come frequently for the Mustangs, with an average margin of victory being 12 runs per game this season, the close contest is one that provides the pushback needed for the team to grow.
“We even talked about it after the Graham game that we hate games like that. They’re mentally exhausting because there’s slower pitching and errors,” Kennedy said. “We would rather lose a tighter ballgame, just to get some competition like this. I think this prepares us big time for later on down the road.”
The fight was on from the early innings when Jordan-Matthews took a 3-2 lead after four innings.
“They came in and hit a solo home run. We knew at that point that they were going to make a statement too, and we were in for a dog fight,” Kennedy said. “We battled and saw some decent pitching. It’s been a while since we’ve seen that in a game.”
North Moore senior Gabe Purvis (9) pitches against Jordan-Matthews Tuesday at home.
Lynn Pennington/Special to The Pilot
Outside of the adversity from their opponents, North Moore saw adversity strike when Allred, the team’s starting senior shortstop, went down with a leg injury after driving home a run in the bottom of the fifth.
“Now I’m sending Gabe to the mound, who would be the backup shortstop, and pulled Austin to shortstop and Hagen (Auman) in from left (field) to play second (base). It was just a lot of moving parts tonight,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got 12 players, so when you take one person out of it, what we do every day changed real quick.”
Purvis came on in the sixth inning, and two unearned errors came during the top of the seventh to extend the game. He struck out three batters in two innings, and Dunlap struck out eight batters in his five innings to start.
“It makes us better as a team. Eventually it will make you better playing as a team once you play harder competition,” Purvis said.
Furr had two hits, and Will Kennedy had a hit and an RBI.
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