RALEIGH – Sanderson pitcher Max Gagnon kept Fuquay-Varina’s bats as cool as the night air Tuesday at Optimist Park in North Raleigh in the second round of the NCHSAA baseball playoffs. Gagnon struck out eight and allowed only four batters to reach base en route to a complete game shutout and a 3-0 victory over the Bengals.

“Max pitched a great game,” Spartans coach Todd Laughlin said. “This was the best game he’s pitched all year. It was definitely nice not to have to use the bullpen.”

After a single to right-center field by second baseman Kyle Hedgpeth to open the game, 12 straight Bengals stepped to the plate and recorded outs. It wasn’t until catcher Collin Carver’s single in the top of the fifth inning that Fuquay saw its second hitter get to first base, which was as far any Bengal got all night.

“He overpowered us,” Fuquay coach Milton Senter said of Gagnon. “I tip my hat to him and give him all the credit. I guess it was about the fifth inning or so and I realized we hadn’t squared up on a single ball yet. We just never could get anything going.”

As dominant as Gagnon was, the Bengals’ duo of starter Ross Barnett and reliever Travis Long was nearly as sharp. The two combined to strike out seven and surrender just four hits – three of which came in the first two innings when Sanderson scored all three of its runs. And two of those runs came as the result of a throwing error and a balk.

“It was tough for us to get into a groove offensively,” Laughlin said. “Fortunately we were able to get to them early and score a few runs.”

Senter was pleased with the performances of his hurlers, but still recognized that without offense a team has zero chance to win.

“Our guys pitched well,” he said. “But you can’t steal first and you can’t win if you don’t score. The game should have probably been 1-0 given the way the first two innings went, but 1-0 means we still had nothing.”

Fuquay’s only real close encounter with scoring a run came with one out in the sixth inning. With a runner on first Hedgpeth hit a deep drive toward the 400-foot sign in centerfield, but Spartans outfielder Kyle Wood was waiting on the warning track to put it away for the second out of the inning and essentially end the threat.

What perhaps would’ve been a home run and pulled the Bengals to within a run most any other high school ballpark instead was simply a noisy out at cavernous Optimist Park.

“We certainly have a home-field advantage,” Laughlin said. “This park fits our style of play and we know it can be tough on our opponents sometimes.”

Next up for Sanderson, the third seed from the Cap-7 conference, is league-rival Broughton, who finished one spot ahead of the Spartans in the Cap-7 standings this season.

Sanderson will be looking to advance to the fourth round for the second straight year. Last season the Spartans reached the 4A Eastern finals before being eliminated.

For Fuquay, it’s the end of the road. But after losing 12 seniors from the previous year and sneaking into the playoffs in the fifth-and-final Tri-Eight spot, a second round exit is hardly something Senter considers a failure.

“For us to make it this far is a nice accomplishment,” he said. “We just didn’t have anything for [Sanderson]. They’re a great team. What I’m most proud of my team for, is that they could have mailed it in after the [regular] season and not played hard in the first round but they didn’t. They played like they wanted to play some more baseball, and they were able to.

“We’ve got some quality kids.”