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GREENSBORO — Landon Kimrey avoided one very wet gift on his 29th birthday, instinctively ducking out of harm's way when his Northern Guilford baseball team tried to celebrate its freshly-minted Mid-State 3-A tournament title by dousing its head coach.

No worries.

The Nighthawks, who had relentlessly pummeled the ball around their home field in an 11-0 mercy victory over Morehead for the title, employed that same resilience to soak Kimrey successfully when he let his guard down a few moments later.

"Thought I was scot-free," Kimrey said with a shiver and a smile. "Boy, that was cold."

George Carter struck out 12 in a complete-game two-hitter for Northern, which will host its first playoff game next Friday.

Austin Hardin was named tournament MVP after defeating Williams on Wednesday for his sixth conference victory, and he was joined on the All-Tournament Team by second baseman Devyn Harrington, who had six hits in three games, and center fielder Danny Casciano, a captain who has "the dirtiest uniform every game," Kimrey said.

The one was never in doubt, as the second-seeded Nighthawks got two hits each from James Hudson, Trip Dunn and Sean Mas and three from Bradley Burchett to close out the eighth-seeded Panthers, who had upset top-seeded Western Alamance to make it here.

"We knew they were coming strong, and we had to play like it was our last game too," Kimrey said. "It feels good to be playing this well going into the playoffs. We played with a lot of heart, but there were times we could have executed plays that need to happen in the playoffs."

Kimrey graduated from Morehead and was an assistant coach there for two seasons before taking the head job at Rockingham County Middle. This is his first year at Northern, but he calls this title "three years in the making."

He retained the rest of the Northern staff, and his wife, Karen, quit a job in real estate to stay home and take care of their two daughters while he chased this dream.

"When they work that hard," Kimrey said, "it makes my job easy. We had three goals this season, to win have fun and get better. We've definitely done those three so far."

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com

Morehead 000 00 — 0
Northern Guilford 114 5x — 11

Leaders: Northern Guilford — Bradley Burchett 3-3, 2 RBIs; James Hudson 2-3, 3 RBIs; Trip Dunn 2-2, RBI; Sean Mas 2-3, RBI; Devyn Harrington 1-3, 2 RBIs.