Marty Kirkland
martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com
DALTON — A day after coming up with a 2-1 victory, Northwest Whitfield’s baseball team found itself on the losing end of that same score against Ringgold on Tuesday at Richard S. Chumley Field in Tunnel Hill.
With Region 7-4A play four days away for the Bruins, they’ll take the same thing from both of their past two games: The defense is solid and the pitching is coming along, but the hitting — scrappy as it has been — has to be a little better.
But in taking Ringgold (6-2) ace Matthew Crownover from perfection to pressure by the end of Tuesday’s game, the Bruins (5-2) might have shown they’re headed in that direction already.
“Looking at this game, it gives our team a lot to build on, because we know Ringgold is (a good team)” said Northwest senior Cody Jones, whose leadoff walk in the fifth broke up Crownover’s perfect game. “I think we gave them everything they wanted today. You don’t like to lose, but any time you lose 2-1 there’s always something you can look to build on.”
Crownover, a sophomore lefthander, has already been offered a full scholarship by several Division I programs and committed to Clemson in December. He was sharp and sneaky on Tuesday, striking out 16 and walking one in a two-hit, complete-game effort.
But after zipping through Northwest’s lineup the first four innings — he carried a 2-0 lead after 4 1/2 — the Bruins made him go to work over the final three, including a seventh inning in which Jones led off with a double and moved to third on Jarrett Bruce’s sacrifice bunt, but was left standing there as Crownover struck out the final two batters.
That final showdown impressed Ringgold coach Brent Tucker the most.
“All of a sudden there’s pressure and now you’ve got to pitch, now you have to control the game,” Tucker said. “When he did get in trouble, he controlled the game.”
Crownover said he struggled to keep his changeup low late in the game and had to change his target because of unexpected movement on his two-seam fastball, but he adapted well enough to find himself pumping his fist after the final out.
“The biggest thing with me was, I get in those situations when I throw breaking pitches and leave them up,” said Crownover, who threw 87 pitches and is now 2-1. “I kind of focused on my fastball and locating it. In high school, if I locate my fastball, it’s going to be hard to hit anyway. I just got back to basics.”
Northwest cut the lead in half in the fifth when Hunter Key’s two-out single to the left side brought home Jones, who was running on the 0-2 count, but the Bruins left courtesy runner Nick Stavrow on first when Crownover picked up another inning-ending strikeout. Zach Sloan had a two-out single in the sixth, but was left stranded.
Still, the later adjustments — Jones said it was a mental matter of looking for the right pitches — showed Northwest coach Todd Middleton something.
“We were taking some big hacks early in the game,” said Middleton, whose Bruins had five hits in their 2-1 win against Pope John Paul II of Hendersonville, Tenn., on Monday. “I think finally we understood we had to shorten up and get the ball in play.”
Tommy Malerbi started for Northwest and had to work out of trouble each of the first three innings — the Bruins caught a big break in the third when Colton Cross lofted a shot toward the treetops in left field, only to have it take a sharp drop just inside the fence for a double — before putting together a 1-2-3 fourth. He was pulled after that for Carter Thames, who handled the fifth, and Bruce, who pitched the sixth and seventh.
“He could have easily stayed in,” Middleton said. “But it was the third time through the order the next inning and we needed to get Carter and Jarrett in there to face some good hitters.”
Ringgold scored its first run on Reed Walden’s RBI single in the third, then added the second on Caleb Jones’ RBI double in the fourth. Crownover and Zach Lance each went 2-for-4.
