Legion baseball: Pitt County Post 39 falls in Area 1 semifinals

Christian Stokes has been a fast learner this summer.

The first-year Pitt County Post 39 legion baseball coach got his first taste as a head coach after a long high school season as the assistant coach for state runner-up South Central. As soon as that season ended, Stokes began working on his summer team.

“It’s been like building the ship as it’s sailing along,” Stokes said.

Building a roster, filling out lineups and handling a pitching staff are some of the things that Stokes had to pick up on the fly.

“As the season’s gone on we’ve done a lot better job of buying into our role and understanding what that looks like,” Stokes said. “On the first day we asked the guys who plays where. We’ve taken that into account, but sometimes guys are all over the place and when they can take on that challenge, when we do that, I mean, we’re really good.”

It was a successful maiden voyage.

Stokes and the 39ers built a ship that carried them to the semifinal round of the Area 1 East playoffs. On Wednesday, that run came to an end with a 6-5 loss to Wayne County Post 11 at Carolina Athletic Park in Goldsboro.

Wayne County moved on to the state championship round as it swept the best-of-five series. Post 11 grabbed an early series lead with a pair of blowout wins in the first two games, but didn’t experience a cakewalk in the elimination game.

Wayne County led 4-0 after the third inning and looked to be in command once again. Then the hit parade marched through the stadium.

Post 39 scored five runs in the top of the fourth to take a 5-4 lead. Mason Hobbs was at the plate when the tying run came in to score from third on a wild pitch, then Hobbs roped the go-ahead RBI single into center field to push his team ahead.

“It was great to see us battle and fight back the way we did,” Stokes said. “I don’t know if my heart could take many more endings like that, though.”

Neither team scored in the fifth or sixth inning, setting up a pressure-filled seventh. Wayne County put a runner in scoring position, then connected on a walk-off RBI single to shallow center to claim the win and advance to the state title round against the Area 1 West Region winner.

For Pitt County, battling in a close game was a strong way to finish the season.

“That’s kind of what you preach from Day One, gotta compete,” Stokes said. “That to happen in the last game of the season, or what would potentially be the last game of the season was huge. To see them rally behind each other and get up and score those runs was huge.

“It was a huge momentum swing and brought the guys back into it. (After Tuesday’s loss) I harped on the fact that like, yeah, we’re down two games and they weren’t close. We had two options: either come out and roll over and just give it to them, or we can make them earn it. I think that that is exactly what we did. We came out here and made them earn it and that’s all we could ask for.”