Watauga’s baseball team found out Friday night just how disappointing one loss can be.

The Pioneers, leading by a run in the top of the seventh inning, needed just one more out to finish off Weddington in the first round of the state 4-A playoffs and set up a showdown with Ardrey Kell in the second round. Two times, Weddington batters had two strikes on them. Both times, those batters reached base.

Eventually, Weddington scored two runs in the inning and held on to take a 3-2 victory over the Pioneers.

Weddington (12-12) had already lost four games in extra innings this season and eight by one run. However, the Warriors, the No. 5 seed from the Southwestern 4-A Conference, takes on Ardrey Kell, a winner over Garinger in the first round and a fellow SWC foe Tuesday.

Watauga, the Northwestern 4-A Conference champion and No. 1 seed from that league, finishes its season 17-8.

Watauga’s ace, Jon Sharpe, got Weddington’s first two batters out with relative ease in the seventh, but walked No. 9 batter John Mangum. Daniel Yelverton followed with a single and Clay Tresher added an RBI single to tie the game.

After Brad Collins walked to load the bases, Anthony Boone drew a walk which drove in a run and put the Warriors in front 3-2. In the Watauga half of the seventh, three Pioneers grounded out in order to end the game.

Watauga’s offense struggled against two Weddington pitchers. Watauga didn’t get to Weddington starter Peter Hendel until the fourth inning, when Austin Story singled in a run and Phil Gordon drove in another on a squeeze bunt.

Weddington’s defense got Hendel out of another jam in the fifth inning by turning a triple play. It started when Watauga’s Adam Church hit a ground ball to Weddington second baseman Chase Prilleman, who slipped the ball to shortstop Peyton Honeycutt to get the force play on Cal Hardee.

Honeycutt threw to first baseman Brandon Kersnowski to turn the conventional double play, but saw that Watauga’s Baine Martin was heading to home. Kernsowski got the ball to Mangum at home, who put the tag on Martin just before he could cross the plate to complete the triple play.

“I want to say that I think that is the second time in my coaching career —I saw one in college level with I coached at Gardner-Webb,” Weddington coach Travis Poole said. “It was fortunate and I would have done the same thing they did. They had to make a great throw and if we made one bad throw that’s off at all, (Martin’s) safe.”

Watauga’s David Martin doubled to lead off the sixth inning, but he would be the last Pioneer to reach base. Tresher took the mound with one out in the sixth and did not allow a base runner.

The Warriors jumped on Sharpe early when Tresher hit a solo home run in the first inning, but Sharpe regrouped and did not allow a run until the seventh inning. In fact, Sharp hit a stretch in the game when he retired 10 straight Warriors from the third to the sixth innings.

Sharpe scattered six hits, struck out nine, but walked five, all in the final two innings.

“That guy really put a good swing on that ball,” Sharpe said of Tresher’s home run. “I actually put it where I wanted to and he turned on it. But I had my team battling behind me and they made some diving catches like always and really helped me get out of some tight positions.”

Weddington 3, Watauga 2
Weddington 100 000 2 — 3 6 2
Watauga 000 200 0 — 2 4 1
Hendel, Tresher (6) and Mangum. Sharpe and Church. W—Tresher, L—Sharpe. LOB—Weddington 8, Watauga 5. 2B—Weddington, Hendel; Watauga, D. Martin, Wallace. HR—Weddington, Tresher. SH—Watauga, Gordon. CS—Weddington, Yelverton. HBP—Watauga, D. Martin (by Hendel). TP—Weddington 1.