Current head coach Matt Baker was a senior second baseman, and none of the current Patton High School baseball players were yet out of diapers the last time the Panthers got this hot in the NCHSAA state playoffs.
No. 12 seed Patton rallied for second- and third-round road wins in heart-stopping fashion over the past week, pulling ahead in the seventh inning both in a 10-2 victory over No. 5 North Wilkes on May 8 and again Tuesday at No. 4 Trinity in a 7-5 victory.
No Burke County prep baseball team has ventured farther in the playoffs than has this Patton squad since the 2009 version of the Panthers, who reached the 2A state championship series in just the program’s second year.
The Panthers (17-10) late Friday got the ultimate test, facing the top seed in the 3A West bracket, North Stanly (24-4), on the road, and Patton would be without senior pitching ace Cohen Christian for the contest as he’d exhausted his pitch count during Tuesday’s victory.
“At this point, we’re playing with house money,” Baker said. “This group really believes in each other, and I know we are going to go down there and give them our best shot and see what happens.”
Patton led Trinity 1-0 when Gavin Johnson led off the top of the second with a single and scored on Colsyn Queen’s one-out single to left field.
But the hosts plated two runs in back-to-back innings for a 4-1 lead, and the Panthers played catch-up the rest of the way, still trailing 5-4 entering the top of the seventh as they were down to potentially their final three outs of the season.
Christian began the inning with a double to left, and Landry Duvall then reached with a sacrifice bunt and fielding error, which allowed Christian to touch home plate with the tying run and Duvall to reach second.
Johnson then bunted Duvall over to third base before junior left fielder River McCrary crushed a 2-2 offering over the left-field fence for a two-run homer, his first of the season.
“I usually keep people on their toes, especially our team,” McCrary said. “I was just trying to hit the ball, to be honest. I thought it was a double. I didn’t really know what was happening. And then I was running the bases and saw the ump doing his little finger twirl, and then I realized what it was.”
After Christian (6 2/3 IP, 9 H, BB, 4 ER, 4 K) notched the first two outs from the mound in the bottom of the seventh and reached the maximum allowable 105 pitches, Duvall struck out the only batter he faced to earn the save and give Christian the win.
Patton overcame five defensive errors and a would-be key base-running blunder in the fifth in the win.
“We picked the right time to start hitting,” Baker said. “The seventh inning has been good to us these last two games. We got down early but battled back. I’m just super proud of them.”
McCrary, the No. 8 hitter in the lineup, finished 3 for 4 with two runs, two RBIs, and a stolen base. Queen, who bats ninth, reached base three times and also drove in a pair of runs, and the No. 7 hitter, Johnson, scored twice and stole a base.
“The bottom of the lineup was really productive for us,” Baker added. “River’s got some pop. He hadn’t ever hit a home run for us, but in practice, you can see he’s capable of it. He just finally squared one up, and when he hit it, I knew it was gone.”
Other PHS offensive leaders in the win were Christian (two hits), Laine Barrier (two hits, RBI), Trevor Throneburg (two hits including a double, run), and Wyatt Hullette (single, walk, HBP).
Patton’s heroes came in the more likely variety in the previous round, but they were still needed, as after carrying a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the sixth, North Wilkes tied the game entering the seventh inning.
Barrier singled to start the frame, and the senior catcher Throneburg followed with a first-pitch, go-ahead RBI double to right field, his fourth double of the game.
The fourth-year varsity player Throneburg says he’s played since age 5 and doesn’t remember a game with four doubles, calling the feat maybe more rare than hitting for the cycle.
“I do struggle with trying to do a little too much, maybe trying too hard sometimes,” Throneburg said. “This week, I’ve tried to tone it back and really relax and trust my habits and the hard work that got me here.
“Those are my brothers. We work day in, day out, and we know that at the end of the day this is what we’ve always been working for. This is something that we have been trying to build for a long time, and I couldn’t be happier.”
Throneburg scored twice and drove in two runs, with his final double opening the floodgates as the Panthers managed five hits, drew three walks, reached on two errors and via a hit batsman, and scored eight times in the seventh, sending 14 batters to the plate.
“(Throneburg) struggled at the plate (against Draughn in the first round), and he beats himself up,” Baker said. “But I told him, ‘Next game, you’re gonna come out here smokin’,’ and that’s what he did. He’s a thinker, but when he just gets up there and swings it, he’s a heck of a hitter. He wants it as bad as anybody does, and I’m really happy for him.
“We had two runs going into the top of the seventh, but we had baserunners all game, so I felt like we could have had a few more runs already at that point and were kinda due maybe. We’d had opportunities. But once we got that first run (in the seventh), it just turned into a carousel, and everybody was hitting.”
Barrier (two runs, two RBIs, walk) and Brady Davis (double, run, walk) added two hits each, and Johnson scored twice and drove in a pair, while Christian (7 IP, 7 H, 0 BB, 2 ER, 3 K) was his usual self in the complete-game win.
“A complete game on 74 pitches is pretty impressive,” Baker said of Christian, “especially against a team that’s put up a lot of runs this year.”
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Braylen Clontz (2) is welcomed back to home plate by her Draughn
softball teammates after hitting a grand slam in the team’s NCHSAA
3A state playoff second-round home win on May 8 in Valdese.
JAMES LYNCH JR. / THE PAPER
SOFTBALL
Draughn in 4th round, making history again
In 2017, Draughn became the only softball team in Burke County history to reach the NCHSAA state quarterfinals.
This past week, the Lady Wildcats did so for the second time.
Fifth-seeded Draughn defeated fourth-seeded Pine Lake Prep by a 6-3 final in the third round of the 3A playoffs on Tuesday in Mooresville. With the win, the Lady Wildcats punched their ticket to the West Regional semifinals late Friday, when they were scheduled to host No. 8 Union Academy (15-6) — the defending 1A state champion – for a chance to advance to next week’s best-of-three regional championship series.
“I just couldn’t be more proud of this group of girls,” said Draughn coach Chris Powell, who noted that his team made the necessary adjustments at the plate and did all of the little things right to earn the victory.
“We talk about changing our approach at-bat to at-bat, but also pitch to pitch, and I saw a lot of that tonight,” stated Powell. “Girls’ shoulders might’ve been flying out and then the next pitch they were staying in and driving the ball opposite field and scoring a run, so we made great changes throughout the lineup tonight.”
Things didn’t look good for the Lady Wildcats (20-5) — who matched DHS’ 2012 and 2023 squads for the most total wins in program history — in the early going. In fact, each of the first seven Draughn batters struck out against Lady Pride junior pitcher Emery Jensen, a Marshall University verbal commit who came in with a 10-2 record, 205 strikeouts, and a 0.41 ERA in 85 innings across 13 appearances this spring.
But with one out in the top of the third inning, Draughn sophomore second baseman Bailey Winkler fouled off a couple of pitches before singling to left. After moving to second on a passed ball, Winkler scored on a two-out single from senior leadoff hitter Maria Medrano.
“Just looking to make contact, get something going with the team,” said Winkler of her approach during the aforementioned at-bat. “Seeing if I can toss the bat to other people, make sure we get something going there.”
Lindsey Hensley followed with another single for the Lady Wildcats, while Medrano and Hensley both scored on a double from Braylen Clontz before Jensen struck out the side for the third straight inning.
PLP responded with three runs of its own in the bottom of the fourth, getting a two-run single from Brynn Lehnerer and an RBI base hit from Emma Rette to tie the score at 3-all.
Then Draughn loaded the bases with one out in the sixth before a sacrifice fly from Aubrey Childers plated Makenzie Powell — who was serving as a courtesy runner for Maddy Hudson — with the go-ahead run. Medrano followed with a double that brought in both Cydnee Deal and Winkler, giving the Lady Wildcats a three-run lead yet again.
From there, Draughn senior hurler Avie Helton retired each of the final six batters she faced — highlighted by a four-pitch seventh — ultimately allowing six hits and the three runs, all of which were unearned. Helton also had two strikeouts and two walks as she improved to 19-4 on the season thanks to her 16th complete game of the year.
“I was just out there having fun with my girls because it could’ve been our last game, and I just wanted to have fun with them,” said Helton. “And I knew I had my defense behind me, I wasn’t worried about that, so I was just pitching, to be honest. I knew my girls were gonna work.”
“Coming into this game, of course we talked about their pitcher a lot, how good she was, but I don’t think Avie got the credit that she deserves,” added Powell. “She got her 100th strikeout of the year tonight, and she’s not even a strikeout pitcher, she’s one that trusts her defense and her defense plays well behind her. But she pitched her butt off tonight. … She stuck to the scouting report, hit her locations well, really bowed her neck in some tough spots and picked up a well-deserved win tonight, and I’m super proud of her.”
Despite striking out 15 times against Jensen, who struck out at least 15 batters for the 10th time this season, the Lady Wildcats finished with 11 hits as a team. Winkler led the way with three singles, while Medrano, Hudson (two singles), and Helton (two singles) each recorded two hits to go with one apiece from Hensley and Clontz.
Winkler, Hensley, and Powell added stolen bases for Draughn, which became only the second team all year to score six runs against the Lady Pride.
“We definitely made a change, you could tell,” said Helton. “We had seven straight strikeouts, and then I think we all realized that we needed to stop taking the long swings and shorten it up a little bit, and I feel like that’s what we did.”
Draughn previously knocked off 12th-seeded East Davidson in the second round on May 8 in Valdese, pounding out 16 hits en route to a 12-4 triumph.
Helton also tossed all seven innings in that contest, surrendering four runs (one earned) on 10 hits with three strikeouts and one walk.
At the plate, the Lady Wildcats’ big blow came on a grand slam from Clontz — who joined teammate Ava Aldridge as the only two county players to hit a grand slam this spring — in the bottom of the fourth. It was Draughn’s 14th home run in 2026, and seven different players have homered for the Lady Wildcats.
“Top to bottom, we can all produce and we can all hit,” said Clontz of Draughn’s lineup. “We’re all power hitters who can make contact, so it’s really fun.”
Other offensive standouts for the Lady Wildcats included Deal (three singles, three RBIs, run), Medrano (double, two singles, three runs), Aldridge (triple, single, two RBIs, two runs), Helton (double, single, RBI, run), Hensley (two singles, three runs, SB), Childers (two singles), and Maddie Grady (double).
Freedom ousted on the road in round two
The 14th-seeded Lady Patriots (9-18) were unable to carry over their hitting success from an opening-round win, falling by a 12-1 margin in five innings to end the season at No. 3 Piedmont in the teams’ 6A second-round contest on May 8.
Freedom fell behind 1-0 after the opening frame but tied things 1-all in the top of the second as pitcher Madelyn LeMaster doubled, and her courtesy runner, Bailey Heape, scored a run thanks to an RBI double from Hallie Ollis, who later also reached base as she drew a walk.
But Piedmont surged back ahead 2-1 after two innings, then held Freedom scoreless the rest of the way while posting six runs in its half of the third and tacking on four more in the fifth to end it early, walking off with one of its three home runs on the day.
LeMaster shared pitching duties with fellow underclassman Bella Creegan in the loss.
“I’ll miss battling with this group of kiddos,” Freedom coach Connor Townsend said. “They’re gritty, talented, and really just some amazing human beings that I consider family. I sure am proud of them, and I hope that this year has given them memories, friendships, and lessons that will last a lifetime.”
