East Bladen’s Eagles, the No. 16 seed in the East, will hit the road again Tuesday with a trip to Durham for a third-round game in the NCHSAA Class 2A baseball playoffs against ninth-seeded N.C. School of Science & Math.
The Unicorns do not have lights at Branson Brown Field, so the NCHSAA set the 5 p.m. start time.
The Eagles upset top-seeded Midway on Friday night as Greyson Heustess and Dan Tatum cracked run-scoring singles in the eighth inning. Heustess batted 3-for-4 with two runs batted in, and Tatum finished 2-for-3 at the plate. Shortstop Zach Meares batted 2-for-4 with a triple.
Sophomore Lefrederick Wooten pitched six strong innings and struck out nine batters for East Bladen, and senior Pierce Melvin finished up with two scoreless innings of relief.
Meares leads the Eagle hitters with a .400 average. Wooten is batting .358, and Heustess and catcher Brady Hollingsworth are both hitting .324. Junior Gabe Barber (.316), senior Josh McKoy (.315), senior Shy Pone (.314), Tatum (.306) and senior Spencer Scott (.295) are other top East Bladen hitters.
The Science & Math Unicorns won the Mid-State Conference championship with a perfect 11-0 league record. Their only loss was 5-4 to Reidsville in the Mid-State tournament championship game.
Senior John Mason slugged a grand slam, batted 3-for-4 and scored three runs in the Unicorns’ 6-2 victory over Oxford Webb in their playoff opener.
Senior William Leary pitched the first five innings against Webb, and Mason worked two innings of relief. Mason pitched a complete game 7-hitter in the Unicorns’ 8-1 second-round victory over Providence Grove.
Senior Geoffrey Fylak batted 4-for-4 in the win over Providence Grove, and senior Aidan Keaveney drove in three runs. The Unicorns snapped a scoreless tie with three runs in the sixth inning and tacked on five more runs in the seventh.
Fylak leads Science & Math with a .500 batting average, 24 runs scored and 16 RBI’s. Senior Caleb Keaveney (.441 avg., 22 runs), senior Chase Overpeck (.404, 23 runs), Mason (.391, 16 RBI’s) and Aidan Keaveney (.375, 28 RBI’s) are other leading hitters for the Unicorns.
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