By MONTE DUTTON
I watched most of the Xfinity Series race at Talladega on Tuesday, won by a fast-rising youth with the can’t-miss name of Jesse Love.
When I first started writing about races there, it scared me. A car sailed out of the track the first time I went.
Weird things happened. Davey Allison crashed a helicopter in the infield. It killed him. Jack Roush crashed an “experimental aircraft” in an Alabama fishpond a few days before a Cup (whichever Cup it was then) race. It almost killed him.
I went to a hospital in Birmingham to check on the condition of an old NASCAR team owner who crashed an experimental airplane.
A race driver spoke in the unknown tongue in my presence before an ARCA race.
Talladega is a place of vivid memories, some good and some bad.
Sort of like Presbyterian College on a given day.
In a three-game sweep of Winthrop a weekend ago, Presbyterian won by a combined margin of 37-7. In the three baseball games since, the Blue Hose have fallen by a margin of 52-13.
High Point (21-18, 10-4 Big South) battered Presbyterian (19-20, 10-4) by a score of 15-7 on Saturday.
Designated hitter Peyton Carr and catcher Eric Grintz each belted two home runs. Grintz drove in five runs, Carr four. The shortstop, Stewart, also launched one.
A second PC starter in as many days, Charlie McDaniel (6-1), lost for the first time all season. In 5-2/3 innings, McDaniel allowed 10 hits and nine runs. High Point treated relievers Tristan McGregor and Yechiel Saint just as harshly.
McDaniel took the mound with an earned run average of 1.86. He left it at 2.90.
Presbyterian’s bats didn’t go silent. The Blue Hose were errorless in the field. They just couldn’t keep up.
Third baseman Noah Lebron and Rhogue Wallace, pinch-hitting, homered for the Hose. Lebron drove in three runs. Jack Gorman and Jackson Hugus doubled.
Brett Wozniak (W, 6-1) worked 6-2/3 innings, allowing four hits and three runs with a walk and four strikeouts. PC scored four runs on the two who followed.
PC attempts to salvage a victory in the 1 p.m. finale on Sunday at High Point’s Williard Stadium.
Take a look at the box here.
Not unexpectedly, the Blue Hose fell twice in a softball doubleheader in Raleigh versus North Carolina State by almost matching scores, 10-0 and 9-0, in the same number of innings, five.
In the former game, the Wolfpack (24-20) scored four runs in the first inning, three in the second and three in the fifth. In the latter, one in the first, five in the third and three in the fourth.
Jenna Greene (7-13) took the loss in the former, Peyton Duncan (3-9) in the latter.
Presbyterian (14-31) had three hits in the first game, two by third baseman Kelby Goodrum and one by shortstop Emma Yanes. Second baseman Kaitlyn Tucker and center fielder Kara Starnes split the two hits in the nightcap.
N.C. State got a homer from A Haser in the opener, and three – Hasler, K Raper and M Tarpey – in the closer. H Goodwin, who didn’t play in the second game, drove in three runs in the first.
Hasler drove in seven runs in the two games.
Seniors Columb Knight, Lleyton Renner and Jimmy McCollum finished in the top I20, and the Blue Hose finished sixth as a team at the Big South Championship.
PC’s 54-hole total of 857 (+5) featured Renner and Knight tying for 14th and McCollum tied for 18th.
High Point, Winthrop, Radford and Gardner-Webb advanced to Sunday’s match play. High Point led the field with a three-round score of 821 (-31).
PC won the doubles point and Evgenios Vasilakis won his fifth straight singles match, but otherwise all flights fell to UNCA Asheville, which defeated the Blue Hose, 4-2, at Marion Diehl Tennis Center at the Big South Men’s Tennis Championship.UN
UNCA (15-7) advanced to the finals.
PC’s doubles duo of Vasilakis and Javier Matos recorded a 7-5 win at No. 1 doubles. At 3, Pedro Cardoso and David Mamalat clinched the doubles point with a 6-4 win.
Women’s tennis junior Claudia Sanchez made Big South First Team all-conference, while she and five other PC players earned spots on Second Team doubles.
McKenzie Davis made the all-academic team.
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