Cannon Ballers Capture Historic Victory Saturday Night in Fayetteville

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – After a shaky start to their inaugural season, the Cannon Ballers used an early manufactured run and lockdown pitching to hold off the Woodpeckers 1-0 for their first-ever win Saturday night at SEGRA Stadium.

Newly acquired utility player Jagger Rusconi led off the ballgame for the Cannon Ballers with a two-strike infield single to shortstop, as this was the first game that Rusconi was called upon to lead off. Next up, Bryan Ramos smoked a 1-2 pitch up the middle for a single off Fayetteville starter Cesar Gomez (L, 0-2) to move Rusconi to second base. During Jose Rodriguez’s at-bat, Gomez balked to move Rusconi to third and Ramos to second, putting two runners in scoring position for one of the top hitters on the Cannon Ballers squad.

After falling behind in the count 0-2, Rodriguez hit a groundball to the Woodpeckers shortstop Shay Whitcomb, as Whitcomb tossed it over to first for the sure out, allowing Rusconi to score, a run that proved to be the only one needed for the Cannon Ballers to capture their first-ever win.

White Sox Top-30 prospect Andrew Dalquist got the start for Kannapolis, spraying three Fayetteville hits over three innings of work, while also punching out two batters. As he has done in a few games already, Jerry Burke (W, 1-1) followed Dalquist’s outing with a strong performance.

From the fourth to the eighth inning, Burke worked around four hits and two walks, using four strikeouts to leave multiple Fayetteville runners on base to end each of his five innings on the bump.

Rusconi collected a multi-hit game with a double in the third inning, as Division III product A.J. Gill joined Rusconi with two hits of his own, continuing his hot-start at the dish for Kannapolis.

After both teams failed to bring home any runs from the second inning on, the Cannon Ballers leaned on Marcus Evey (S, 1) to shut the door on the Woodpeckers in the ninth. Following up Burke’s clean outing, Evey induced two groundouts and then fanned Yeuris Ramirez to collect Kannapolis’ historic win.

Not only was this a monumental win for the Cannon Ballers, Saturday’s victory also marked the first win for first-year manager Guillermo Quiroz.

Quiroz will hand the ball to Jared Kelley (0-1, 8.10 ERA) on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. against Fayetteville at SEGRA Stadium to close out the six-game road trip.