7-18-21 roundup: Legion baseball, Pro basketball and baseball
By Richard Walker
There’s a familiarity between Cherryville Post 100 and Rutherford County Post 423 when it comes to American Legion baseball as the two teams prepare to meet for the N.C. Area IV championship.
After all, they’ve played in the same division every year since 2006.
Additionally, Post 100 head coach Bobby Reynolds coached at East Rutherford for 28 years and Post 100 assistant coach Drew Reynolds (Bobby’s son) just finished his first season as East Rutherford head coach and Post 423 assistant coach Chuck Walker previously coached at Post 100.
On the field, Cherryville has played Rutherford County teams since Post 100 fielded its first team in 1937; Cherryville holds an all-time series advantage of 118-87 that includes 10 playoff wins in 13 series.
This season, the teams split their regular season meetings with Cherryville winning 12-2 in six innings at home on June 21 and Rutherford County winning 8-7 in eight innings at home on June 28.
The stakes aren’t as high as many previous playoff meetings as both teams know they will be advancing to the July 28-Aug. 1 N.C. Legion state tournament at Cherryville’s Fraley Field.
All games in the best-of-three series also will be played at Fraley Field at 7 p.m., starting on Wednesday. The second game would be on Thursday and the third game, if necessary, played on Friday.
Junior Legion baseball
The Area IV tournament began Monday. Here are the results and schedule:
(Pod A)
Monday’s games
Cherryville 14, Caldwell County 7
Burns 3, South Caldwell 1
Tuesday’s games
Burns 8, Cherryville 7 (8 innings)
South Caldwell 5, Caldwell County 1 (Caldwell County eliminated)
Wednesday’s game
Cherryville 4, South Caldwell 1
Friday’s game
Cherryville 5, Burns 3
Saturday’s game
Cherryville 3, Burns 2, 8 innings (Cherryville advances to Junior Legion N.C. state tournament in High Point July 22-26 as Area IV No. 1 team)
(Pod B)
Monday’s games
East Rutherford 13, Cramer 1
R-S Central 6, Matthews 4
Tuesday’s games
East Rutherford 10, R-S Central 5
Matthews 14, Cramer 4 (Cramer eliminated)
Wednesday’s game
Matthews 2, R-S Central 1
Thursday’s game
Matthews 6, East Rutherford 3
Friday’s game
Matthews 9, East Rutherford 5 (Matthews advances to Junior Legion N.C. state tournament in High Point July 22-26 as Area IV No. 2 team)
Pro basketball
The Charlotte Hornets worked out their 44th prospect during a pre-NBA Draft workout on Sunday when they worked out Texas’ Kai Jones.
Pro baseball
The Gastonia Honey Hunters beat West Virginia 15-7 on Sunday to improve to 20-25 on the season.
Gastonia is off on Monday before starting a seven-game road trip that begins on Tuesday at Southern Maryland.