West falls at home

Giving teams extra outs continues to doom the West Caldwell Warriors as they fell to the Hickory Red Tornadoes 9-1 in Gamewell Friday night.

“Once again not fielding ground balls, giving teams extra opportunities cost us,” Warriors head coach Kevin Abee said. “In this ballpark we cannot afford to hurt ourselves by giving extra outs.”

The Red Tornadoes jumped on West Caldwell in the first with a two-out, two-run homer off the bat of clean-up man Branson Christopher off Warrior hurler Jeffrey Rousselle to put Hickory ahead 2-0.

The Warriors got back one of the runs in the bottom of the first when Gordy Hendrix singled and two batters later, Rousselle doubled off Hickory starter Brock Barnette to move within a run. But that was all the offense West Caldwell could muster.

The Red Tornadoes scored two runs in the third inning to extend the lead when Michael Shook scored on a double by Barnette. The Warriors induced a groundout off the bat of Christopher but Hammons scored on the play to extend the Hickory lead to 4-1.

In the sixth inning, the Warriors doomed their own cause with errors. With the bases loaded, Kurt Hammons hit a one-hopper into the infield that was misplayed moving the Hickory's lead to 6-1. Christopher hit another grounder to the infield that was misplayed and allowed two more Hickory runs to score.

The final Red Tornado run came when Ricky Paul singled to left to score Christopher and make the final 9-1 margin.

The Warriors were without Travis Harrison for a third straight game due to illness and cleanup batter AJ Jenkins left in the second with a hand injury.

“Hickory is going to be well coached and well prepared every time they play,” Abee said. “Coach (David) Craft has a great reputation of having fundamentally sound teams and they showed it again tonight.

Gordy Hendrix led the Warrior attack going 4-4 and scoring the lone Warrior run. Hickory was paced by Christopher's 2-4 night with three RBI.

West Caldwell must scoreboard watch as they are in a logjam with Newton-Conover, Maiden and Bunker Hill who are all still within a game of the final CVAC playoff spot.

The Warriors still control their playoff lives if they can defeat the remaining 2-A opponents on their schedule.

That task starts Tuesday as they face the Newton-Conover in Gamewell. Gametime is 7 p.m.