Four games into the season is obviously too early to be making any definitive, long-term predictions or forecasts, but the Person baseball team has excelled in perhaps the two most important areas of the game during its 4-0 start.

Those two areas are pitching and defense, where the Rockets had performed well above average entering Tuesday’s Piedmont Athletic Conference opener against Chapel Hill.

Since allowing six runs in the first two innings of the season-opener, Person had given up just five runs, which covers a span of 25 innings. As well, opponents managed just eight hits off the Rockets in the three games preceding Tuesday (an average of less than three per contest).

Freshman Dylan Dickens, with his sinking fastball, has been a pleasant surprise, earning two wins in his first two starts, and coming within three outs of a no-hitter in last Wednesday’s 3-2 win over a very good 3A South Granville Vikings team.

Senior Jeremy Peed had a win and a save, including a complete-game, two-hitter in an 8-1 victory over Cedar Ridge, a highly ranked 2A team.

Lefty Chris Morgan, who has been bothered by tendonitis this year, saved Dickens’ first win at Oxford Webb, getting two big strikeouts in the seventh inning. He is scheduled to make his first start Friday at Southern Durham.

After a rocky beginning, Stephen Wright settled down enough to get the win in the opener and Brandon Wrenn had a strong outing in relief that day as well.

Defensively, the Rockets did commit four errors in the opener, but the team has been able to make the plays in the field at crucial times.

Last Wednesday’s win over SG was a good example of this.

The infield, which consisted of Ricky Crabtree at shortstop, Cody Ellis at third, Wright at second, and Shawn Whitt at first, handled a slew of ground outs without fail (eight grounders in the first nine at-bats alone), helping to keep the Vikings both scoreless and hitless through six frames.

Dickens gave a lot of credit to his infield after Wednesday’s near no-hitter, which was broken up by a two-run homer in the seventh inning. Just two innings earlier, Whitt preserved the no-no with a nice snag of a line drive off the bat of Chris Riley.

Despite committing two miscues in the seventh, the Rocket defense made the critical defensive play again when catcher Trey Davis threw out a runner (the potential tying run) trying to steal third base to end the game.

It’s one thing to win games when you score 16 and eight runs, as the Rockets have done in two of their games, but the tight, late-inning, one-run affairs are the real challenge.

Heading into Tuesday’s game, Person was passing the test on the strength of its strong defense and pitching in pressure situations.