The Watauga High baseball team split a pair of games at the Impact Baseball Spring Classic on Monday down in Cary, NC.

The Pioneers made two costly errors, were limited to four hits and left seven men on base in a 7-2 loss to Ragsdale, which came in ranked third in the state in Class 3A. Ragsdale, which scored two unearned runs in the first inning, pounded out 13 hits. Cal Hardee suffered his first loss of the year. The Junior, who’s 3-1, coughed up seven runs, but only three were earned on 12 hits in 6 2/3 innings of work. He also walked five and struck out one. Adam Church had a run-scoring single in the sixth; and Hardee drove in a run with a fielders choice in the seventh.
But the Pioneers bounced back and beat South Central 1-0 in game two. Jake Wallace picked up his first win of the year as the senior scattered five hits, walked one and struck out three in six innings of work. Jon Sharpe came on in the seventh and picked up his second save of the year. Austin Story drove in the game’s only run with a ground ball out in the fifth. Chris Shelton set the table with a lead-off single, stole second and went to third on a throwing error, which led to Story’s RBI grounder.
With the split, the Pioneers improve to 11-4. They were scheduled to play Southwest Guilford this morning at 10:45 am. We will have updates throughout the day today, and final details during our news block on WATA in the noon hour.

In other games:

East Burke 10, West Caldwell 1
Freedom 8, Mitchell 2
South Caldwell 2, Lawndale Burns 2 (suspended 4th inning)
McDowell @ West Henderson, rained out, rescheduled for Thursday, April 16th
Alexander Central v. Bunker Hill, rained out

A.C. Reynolds, bye