After dropping their regular season finale to Robbinsville 12-6 on Thursday, June 10, the Yellow Jackets of Hayesville High School opened the 1A baseball playoffs at home as a No. 1 seed when they hosted Christ the King High Catholic High School from Huntersville Tuesday, June 15. Thanks to a gem from starting pitcher Jeremy Stewart and solid run support, Hayesville advanced to round two with a 6-1 victory.
The Crusaders failed to do any damage in their half of the first inning, but Hayesville managed to put numbers on the board in the bottom half. On the first pitch he saw, leadoff batter Connor Bradley drilled the ball to strait away center. Just shy of the fence, the center fielder slipped and let the ball drop which put Bradley on second. It was the only time the senior would swing his bat as the Crusaders intentionally walked him in his other plate appearances. Sophomore catcher Avery Leatherwood tagged the very next pitch for a single to put runners on the corners with no outs. Yellow Jacket batters Jeremy Stewart, Clayton Vandiver and Peyton Hunt all assaulted pitches to drive in runs which gave Hayesville a 3-0 lead early.
Christ the King managed to plate a run in the second, but it was quickly nullified in the bottom of the inning when Leatherwood knocked in a run to make the Jackets’ lead 4-1.
Scoring halted until the bottom of the fifth inning when nine-hole hitter Dakota Matheson used an inside-out swing to push the ball to right field which scored Hunt from third to build Hayesville's lead to 5-1. The final run of the game came in the bottom of the sixth inning. Kyle Lunsford had worked his way to third and when a pitch got by the Crusaders’ catcher, Lunsford broke for home. A lucky bounce off the backstop sent the ball bouncing back to the catcher. Lunsford executed a head first Superman dive and slid across the plate for the score.
The last three regular season games saw Hayesville’s pitching struggle. Those struggles seemed to be ancient history on Tuesday. Stewart went six and 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out an impressive 13 Crusader batters. With Stewart’s pitch count over 100, head coach Jeff Vardo elected to bring in reliever Eli Roberts who struck out the only batter he faced to end the game.
Hayesville will host Mountain Island Charter Thursday, June 17.