Six days off didn’t seem to cause the Grace Christian baseball team to lose its edge.
The Crusaders, who maintained the No. 1 ranking in the NCISAA 3A ranks in Monday’s latest MaxPreps ratings, moved up to 11th among all teams in the state after a dominant weekend in which they allowed just three hits in two games. Grace downed Asheville Christian 10-0 on Friday night and then dusted High Point Christian by the same score on Saturday afternoon.
Grace (11-2) allowed three hits in the whitewash of Asheville Christian, a possible playoff foe currently ranked No. 9 in the NCISAA 3A. The Lions (5-6) pushed it to a sixth inning before Riley Cuddy went yard with one out in the inning to make it a walk-off 10-0 win. Landon McDonald struck out 10 in five innings before Anaan Rahming came on for the sixth and struck out the side.
The Crusaders were right back at it on Saturday, and just as they had against ACA, jumped on their guests early with four runs in the first inning and three in the second. This one ended in a walk-off in five, as Jimmy Alfonsin drove in Reggie Marshall with an infield hit to conclude a 10-0 victory.
Senior Luke Roupe threw his second no-hitter of the season, striking out nine in five innings. He missed a perfect game by one batter, walking High Point’s No. 9 hitter in the lineup to lead off the fourth inning.
High Point Christian, another potential playoff foe ranked No. 3 in the NCISAA 3A, dropped to 10-4 on the season. Grace improved to 11-2 going into a Thursday game at Eastern Carolina Academy, a college baseball preparatory program located in Goldsboro. ECA, a new program started by former Wayne Country Day head coach Adam Pate, plays at the Carolina Athletic Park owned by Grace head coach Rob Wooten. ECA is not a school, and most of the Bobcats’ games are against junior college teams. However, they recently added two games with the Crusaders, and will play here on April 21.
That game will likely offer Grace much more of a challenge than their games last weekend did. The Crusaders scored five runs in the first inning of their win over Asheville Christian, including an RBI single by Cuddy, who was the star of the game at the plate, going 3-for-4 with three runs scored and three RBI. He led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer before hitting another one to end it in the sixth, and was the only Crusader to have more than a single hit. Alfonsin was 1-for-2 with a walk and an RBI triple.
Against High Point, Grace’s 3-4-5 hitters Roupe, Ethan Bunce and Caleb Ellis all collected two hits. Bunce drove in three runs and Ellis two.
The first four Crusader batters of the game reached, as Wesley Clewis and Matt Murchison walked, Roupe singled in the game’s first run, and then Bunce doubled to make it 3-0. An RBI single later in the inning by Connor Howard made it 4-0. Grace added three more in the second, including a two-RBI double by Ellis. Three more in the fifth ended it, including a double from Marshall that drove in the ninth run.
After Thursday’s game in Goldsboro, the Crusaders will go to Wilson’s historic Fleming Stadium on Saturday for a game against East Wake Academy.
