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By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

The legend of Coy James grew at Mt. Tabor when the Davie senior surpassed a star from yesteryear in career home runs.
Matt Marion delivered epic power-hitting exploits from 1988-90, and his 16 career dingers held up for 35 years. James padded his already-pristine resume by slamming Nos. 16 and 17 at Tabor on March 28.
The record-breaker was a gland slam.
“I am 100 percent totally happy about this actually, as Coy is the perfect person to achieve this honor,” Marion, 53, said. “I am very happy for him, but this is only the beginning in my opinion. Please send my congratulations to him and his parents. Davie High School started in 1956, so it’s a 75-year milestone. Congratulations Coy.”
Davie 16, Tabor 2
Heavily-favored Davie belted the Spartans in both meetings, the first one at home on March 25.
The War Eagles extended the margin to mercy-rule territory during a nine-run fourth, doing the damage on four hits, two walks and two errors.
Logan Allen (3-4, four RBIs), James (2-3, double) and Brandon Forrest (2-2) paced the offense. At this point, James had reached base via hit, walk or hit by pitch in 35 of 45 plate appearances, and his extra-base tally was up to 15 in 12 games.
“(A double to right-center) was on an absolute line,” coach Joey Anderson said. “Even though he’s hit some balls out of our ballpark, that ball was impressive. Their lefty wasn’t throwing gas or anything like that, but he threw him one on the outside edge and Coy hit it like a bullet for a ground-rule double. Every day you see something a little bit different. It would have left in a lot of parks.”
Allen’s big night boosted his season average from .150 all the way to .260.
“Logan did great,” Anderson said. “Logan has potential to drive in runs. He doesn’t hit the ball far, but he can hit gaps, he can hit doubles and he had a huge night. He finally was aggressive with the bat and swung it very well.”
The next big thing in the Davie program could be Forrest, a freshman who had seen limited JV action as he recovered from a football injury. He’s 3 for 6 in two varsity games, and he played center field and batted second behind James against Tabor.
“Brandon showed promise from the beginning, but he was on a plan to where he could only play one inning, then he moved to two innings and he was going through PT and he wasn’t released,” Anderson said. “We were trying to help his progress after he had knee surgery. Before the West Rowan game, he was finally cleared to participate, and we decided we were going to start him off as a DH and then work him in. He’s actually a third baseman but he’s been working really hard in the outfield. Brandon has been swinging it very good. I’m not saying he’s Coy James, but his demeanor is a little bit like Coy’s. He doesn’t say much, he just comes out and gets the work in and he’s very coachable. When they walked Coy one time, he came up with a big hit.”
Tucker Hobbs cruised on the mound, allowing four hits and one earned run.
The Spartans (2-7, 0-5 CPC) stunned Oak Grove 14-4, but they’ve dropped three straight since by an aggregate score of 46-3.
“(Mt. Tabor coach Andrew) Jones is doing a really good job with that team, and they have some guys that can hurt you,” Anderson said. “Tucker Hobbs kept him offbalance and we played pretty good defense. Brandon had a sliding catch in the first inning, and Hunter Potts and Logan Allen made some key plays cutting off balls in the gap and holding them to singles. Those are hustle plays.”
Davie 14, Tabor 2
The second blowout win over Tabor was defined, of course, by James’ record-tying and record-breaking blasts.
In the top of the first in Winston-Salem on March 28, he rode the game’s third pitch over the fence. With Kason Stewart, Coston Colamarino and Hayden Potts aboard in the fourth, James’s glow-in-the-dark bat slammed the grand slam to left.
With nine homers, James has the most in 18 years. Not only did he displace Marion at the top of the career list, James is also storming up the single-season list. Zach Howard hit a record 11 homers in 2007. James is second in that category, followed by a three-way tie for third – Marion (eight in 1989), Corey Randall (eight in 2011) and Matt Vernon (eight in 2012). James is hitting .700 (28 for 40).
It’s incredible stuff.
“He got a hanging curveball and he hit it really well,” Anderson said. “He ran the bases just like he has on any other home run.”
“I was just trying to go up and hit something hard and score some runs, but the home run was definitely in the back of my head,” James said. “I also hit a grand slam at Tabor last year, so I was thinking about it again as I went to hit with the bases loaded.”
Davie got eight hits and was gifted 15 walks. James went 2-3 with two walks and five RBIs. Getting one hit were Forrest, Hunter Potts, Drew Krause, Carson Queen, Colamarino and Hayden Potts.
Parker Davis was strong on the hill, throwing four scoreless innings with six strikeouts.
After sweeping Parkland and Tabor, the War Eagles are 4-2 in the CPC. They have a 10-game winning streak against Tabor.
Watauga 8, Davie 4
The War Eagles got off to a terrible start in a home nonconference game on Saturday, and that was the difference as their overall record dipped to 6-8.
In the top of the first, the Pioneers had a walk, a double, a walk, a single and a walk before the first out. The grabbed a 3-0 lead and would lead 8-2 going into the bottom of the seventh. Davie had almost as many errors (four) as hits (six).
“We’ve got to take care of the defensive side,” Anderson said. “That’s one of the things I really wasn’t worried about (before the season). We’re not playing real well defensively. Small little errors – whether they’re mental or written in the scorebook – hurt us. Little things came back to bite us in the long run. We’ve got to clean that stuff up.”
James and Allen had two hits each. Colamarino and Hayden Potts had one and Krause had two walks. Anderson trotted out four pitchers and the last two – Xander Shinsky and Ayden Sanders – tossed one scoreless inning each.
Notes: After suffering six straight losses with three one-run setbacks mixed in, the Pioneers (6-7) left Davie with a three-game winning streak. … Davie has generally fallen short against the better teams on the schedule, but it has a tremendous opportunity coming up with games against Reagan and East Forsyth. “We’ve got some big teams (coming up) that we can get some wins against, and that’s what we’ve got to do right now,” Anderson said.