WILLIAMSTON — Unbelievable. That’s the way Riverside baseball coach Hank Tice described his team’s 15-2 five-inning assault on Perquimans in the third round of the NCHSAA 1-A state playoffs on Friday.
Heading into the game Tice knew the frenzied fans of the No. 1-seeded Knights (22-3, Four Rivers) would witness a slugfest when they hosted No. 2 Perquimans (17-8, Four Rivers). He just didn’t know it would be one-sided. And not even Nostradamus could have predicted the high-powered display the Riverside lineup put on as it cracked the game open with two first inning grand slams and added a three-run home run in the fourth to blast past the Pirates and into the fourth round where they will face No. 1 Voyager Academy on Tuesday.
“It was just unbelievable. There’s just no other words to describe it,” Tice said. “Coming in I was worried about Perquimans because we had beaten them two times this season and because they have so much talent.
“We scored 11 runs in the first inning. I’ve been coaching on this field since 1995 and have been in a bunch of big games but I have never seen anything like that before. It was the most electric crowd this place has ever had and to get two grand slams in the first inning, that’s just unheard of.”
With the bases load, Riverside’s Matt Wisniewski quickly cleared them as a launched an estimated 370-foot moon shot over the fence for the team’s first slam.
Later in the same inning, Mathen Ange stepped to the plate with the sacks packed and deposited a roughly 340-foot shot over the wall. The Knights would add three more runs that inning to take a commanding 11-0 lead going into the second.
With a huge cushion in hand, Knights’ ace Kyle Leggett went to work and scattered five hits over five innings and allowed two runs to up his record to 13-0 on the year.
Riverside scored another run in the third and three in the fourth as Lawrence Smith belted a three-run shot to go ahead 15-2.
Wisniewski would end the game going 2-4 with six RBIs, Ange went 2-4 and drove four runs while Smith finished 2-4 with three RBIs.

Perquimans    010     10    —    2    5
Riverside    (11)01 3X    —    15    13
WP: Kyle Leggett
Hitting: Mathen Ange 2-4 (HR, 4 RBI), Lawrence Smith 2-4 (HR, 3 RBI), Kyle Leggett 1-2 (RBI), Matt Wisniewski 2-4 (3B, HR, 6 RBI), Zach Howell 1-3 (RBI), Ryan Wagner 2-3, Ryan White 1-3, Brandon Chesson 2-3 (2B).