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By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

Davie’s softball team beat visiting Glenn to stay in the CPC championship hunt, but the 1-0 win wasn’t something to text your friends about.
The offense was coughing and wheezing virtually all game. The story on April 1 was Jadyn Davis’ double and Riley Potts’ pitching.
“We did our job defensively, but we’ve got to find a way to get some runs,” coach Nathan Handy said after the brisk, 80-minute game. “It was very, very frustrating. There were girls that looked up at the scoreboard and said: ‘Wait a minute, is this the seventh inning?’ I said: ‘Yes, this would be the seventh inning. We better hold them.’”
In the bottom of the first, the scorching-hot Davis roped a one-out double. She advanced to third on a wild pitch, and with Landry Parsons at the plate, Davis scampered home on a passed ball.
But the rest of the game was forgettable in terms of offense for Davie. Glenn freshman Addyson Irving was dynamite in defeat, finishing with a one-hitter to offset four walks.
“I’ll give Glenn some credit,” Handy said. “They have played everybody a lot closer than they have in the past. (Irving’s) a good pitcher. She throws 55 or 56, she’s consistent and she’s not going to walk a lot of batters. Just like with some of these other games – Starmount (8-3 win), Northwest Guilford (4-1 win) – we could not find a hit. We wanted to lift it. We were hitting cans of corn, and it’s easy to play defense against that. If you hit a ground ball, they’ve got to field it, they’ve got to throw it and they’ve got to catch it. It was definitely a struggle.”
Potts’ brilliance carried Davie to 6-1 in the CPC, good for second place behind West Forsyth (9-0) and ahead of third-place Reagan (5-2). She shoved a two-hitter with no walks and 13 strikeouts. She even had an immaculate inning in which she struck out the side in nine pitches.
“Riley mowed through ‘em,” Handy said. “I didn’t want to have to throw Riley all seven innings – that was definitely not in our plan – but Riley had to go. They didn’t put a lot of balls in play; there wasn’t a whole lot of defense to play.”
Davie’s star in the field was unquestionably shortstop Raelyn Lankford, who helped Davie defeat Glenn (6-7 overall) for the 13th time in a row.
“Raelyn made three good plays, which probably saved the game for us,” he said. “(Catcher) Jadyn threw a girl out at second (in the fourth) and Raelyn made a great tag. Later in that inning, Raelyn dove for the ball. She had to pop up real quick and she threw the girl out at first. On another play, in the seventh inning, she basically did the same thing. She had to dive and make a play. I mean, she had a great night.”
Davis, who went 1 for 1 with two walks, lifted her average to .588 (20 for 34).
WR 3, Davie 0
Davie fought a rattlesnake in a nonconference showdown on April 3 – West Rowan is a relentless machine that is having a ho-hum season at 10-2 – and again Davie’s offense left much to be desired in the home loss.
Potts was her amazing self in six of the seven innings. But Davie couldn’t handle her counterpart, senior Arabelle Shulenburger, who scattered five hits in seven innings.
“It was pretty much a pitchers’ duel until the sixth inning,” Handy said. “They got some hard hits in places we couldn’t make a play on, and that’s how it goes sometimes. We’ve been fortunate in some of our games and did the exact same thing – had one really good inning and came away with the win. So we got the other side of that.”
The War Eagles had a chance to seize momentum with the score 0-0 in the fourth. Carleigh Croom led off with a walk, but she was throwing out trying to steal second. Addie Brown reached on an error with one out, but her pinch-runner was thrown out at second following a pitch in the dirt.
Davie had another chance in the fifth, when L. Parsons led off with a double and advanced to third on Hanna Steinour’s bunt. Alas, Shulenburger induced an infield popup and a comebacker to the circle to keep it 0-0.
Potts had a two-hitter going through five, but there was a West explosion in the sixth. The Falcons scored three runs on four hits and went on to defeat Davie for the eighth straight time, including 3-2 last year.
“It was two good pitchers battling it out,” Handy said. “We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times. That’s going to happen in some of those games.”
Notes: Potts walked none and whiffed 12 batters in defeat. … Potts has signed with Valdosta State, while Shulenburger is headed to Lenoir-Rhyne. … Davie was the underdog on paper. West Rowan lost 4-2 to West Forsyth, which beat Davie 12-2. West Rowan lost 2-0 to South Iredell, which beat Davie 16-1. … Davie slipped to 11-3. … J. Davis has a 13-game hitting streak.