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By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

The Mocksville Senior Legion baseball team put together an improbable rally in the seventh inning, only to leave Holt Moffitt Field with a close-but-no-cigar 6-5 loss on July 5 in game one of the best-of-three, first-round series against the Davidson County Hawgs.
Post 174 was down 6-1 going into the top of the 7th. Six two-out hits and one error later, it was 6-5 with Manny Morales digging toward home. The right fielder made a spectacular throw to hand Mocksville a deflating defeat.
“The right fielder through a perfect strike,” coach Mike Lovelace said. “I had already told Morales to get a huge lead. The guy just made a great play.”
The Hawgs seized control when it scored four runs in the fourth. Mocksville starter Tucker Hobbs got a strikeout with the bases full to end the inning.
Hobbs had to face a dynamic offense after missing nine games. Despite seeing his first action in 25 days, the righthander was up to the task. Lovelace had no complaints with the one-inning relief work of Luis Sanchez and Morales, but Hobbs’ four-inning effort was undermined by a wretched defensive showing. Only two of his 5 runs were earned as Mocksville committed 5 errors.
“We let them off the hook,” Lovelace said. “Hobbs threw his butt off. We kicked two routine double plays. We dropped two fly balls. And we threw one over the fence out of play for a run. We were down 6-1, but it should have been 2-1. We could have ended up winning 5-2.
“Hobbs gave me everything I wanted. Sanchez came in and did a good job. Then I went to Morales on the lefties, and he got them out.”
Davidson starter Caleb Butcher cuffed Mocksville for six innings, but its coach made a change in the seventh and turned to Seth Yarborough. Mocksville seemed done when Yarborough struck out the first two in the 7th.
But Mocksville did not go out with a whimper; it went down throwing punches. Sanchez kept his team alive by singling on a 3-2 pitch. Hunter Daywalt doubled down the left-field line. Jordan Turner doubled in the gap on a 1-2 offering. On a 1-2 pitch, James Spencer reached on an error. Morales put a 1-2 pitch in play and legged out an infield hit that cut Mocksville’s deficit to 6-4. Then Joseph Johnson singled on an 0-2 pitch to load the bases.
That’s when Lovelace summoned a pinch hitter, Nik Nelson, who fell behind 1-2 in the count. With Mocksville down to its last strike for the sixth time, Nelson became the seventh straight batter to reach base when he poked a hit over first. Spencer scored easily, but Morales was gunned down at the plate. Instead of a 6-6 game with Johnson representing the go-ahead run at second, it was a heartbreaker for the visitors.
“They used their top two arms,” Lovelace said. “They were on skates and scared. I beat myself up all night. Jonus (Johnson) was on deck and I could have held (Morales). But with two outs – man, you are supposed to score. The guy had to make a good throw. I’m not going to second guess that. We fought, that’s all we can do. They are 21-4 and we went toe to toe with them. We were right where we wanted to be.”
Turner (2 for 3, double, walk, steal) and Daywalt (2-4, 2 doubles, 2 RBIs) came up big as Mocksville matched Davidson in hits, 9-9.
“Turner had two big hits and threw out three baserunners,” Lovelace said of the catcher.
Noah Owens went 1 for 1 before leaving with an injury. Lovelace’s third pitcher, Morales, only faced four batters in the sixth to keep the Hawgs at six runs. But Mocksville’s luck in one-run games has been brutal (1-5 in such games).
Hawgs 18, Mocksville 6
After the theatric rally fell short, Lovelace was concerned about his deflated boys.
“You never know how the players are going to respond after a game like that,” he said.
To put it generously, Mocksville did not respond well when it hosted the Hawgs in game two on July 6.
Davidson scored two runs in the first, eight in the second, three in the third and five in the fourth as Mocksville’s season ended in miserable fashion.
It was an all-too-familiar margin of defeat as Mocksville exited at 4-19. It was the 11th run-rule loss of the season.
A Davidson batter homered on the game’s fifth pitch, but Mocksville had a golden opportunity to change the 2-0 deficit in the bottom of the first. After the first two batters reached on an error and walked, Turner singled to right to load the bases. Alas, Mocksville came away empty-handed. Lovelace held Sanchez at third when Spencer flew out to center. When the center fielder squeezed Morales’ flyball, Sanchez tagged up. He was thrown out at home to keep it 2-0.
The game went completely sideways in the top of the second, when the Hawgs sent up 13 batters and scored eight on five hits, three walks, a hit batsman and an error.
The mercy-rule game ended after five innings as Davidson (22-4) defeated Mocksville for the sixth time in as many tries in 2025.
Jonus Johnson did his part, going 2 for 3. But Mocksville only managed 5 other hits, 1 each from Sanchez, Daywalt, Turner, Joshua Phelps and Brayden Carter.
The Hawgs battered 6 pitchers for 16 hits, an attack that was aided by 9 walks.