CHAPEL HILL — A sudden case of erroritis struck the Person Rockets Thursday afternoon at East Chapel Hill, and it came at an inopportune time.

Ahead 4-1 entering the bottom of the fifth inning, Person committed three errors in the field, leading to four East Chapel Hill runs as the Rockets went on to suffer a costly 6-4 Piedmont Athletic Conference loss to the Wildcats.

The defeat was significant for two big reasons.

The Rockets (11-7 overall, 4-5 conference) are now in a position where they will likely need to go at least 4-1 in league play the rest of the way if they hope to finish fifth or higher in the conference and make it to the Division 4A playoffs — a formidable task with games to be played against conference leaders Riverside and Jordan.

They will also lose out in the event of a tiebreaker situation against the Wildcats (8-8 overall, 4-4 conference), who swept the season series between the two teams.

“Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about our collapse today,” said Rocket head coach Steve Evans after the game. “We’ve got to step up and make the plays [in the field]. We scored enough runs to win this game.”

Coming off a lengthy three-game rest from pitching, Person starter Jeremy Peed, now 2-5, hurled his strongest game in a while, but he ended up the hard-luck loser.

The three Wildcat hits in the fateful fifth were not well struck and the three miscues were all plays that probably should have been made.

“Jeremy pitched a great game. He kept them off balance, but that fifth inning forced him to throw more pitches and they snuck in a couple of hits,” Evans said.

On the other side, ECH got another serviceable effort from lefty Rob Moore, who went the distance for the win and had a complete-game 10-1 victory over the Rockets back on March 18.

“I think our approach at the plate was a lot better against him this time. He’s not overpowering but he’s probably one of the better pitchers we’ve seen in terms of spotting his pitches,” Evans observed.

After ECH drew first blood with an unearned first-inning run, the Rockets came back with single tallies in the third and fourth inning, and two more in the fifth to take a 4-1 lead.

Trey Davis singled home a run in the third, and Marc Davis did the same in the fourth to put Person in front by a run. Ricky Crabtree (2-for-3 on the day) then cranked a long home run over the left field fence with a man on in the fifth for the 4-1 edge.

That’s when the Wildcats utilized the three Person errors and three hits to plate four in the bottom of the fifth and add another in the sixth via a sacrifice bunt, a sacrifice fly, and an RBI single by James Heine.

Person had a chance to even the game at five in the top of the sixth when Travis Vaughan led off with a single, Marc Davis walked, and pinch runner Keaton Horner (who replaced Vaughan) got over to third on a sacrifice bunt.

Zack Oakley then skied a fly ball to center fielder Alex Tempesta, who caught the ball coming in and threw a dart to home to nail Horner at the plate and end the inning.

“It needed to be a perfect throw to get him out and he made the play,” said Evans. “In high school baseball four out of five times the runner probably scores on that play but we didn’t get that break today.”

Their fifth-inning defensive woes aside, the Rockets did have some shining moments in the field on Thursday.

Marc Davis ran down a hard drive to right field off the bat of Heine and snagged it against the fence in the third inning, and first baseman Shawn Whitt made a tough sliding, over-the-shoulder catch of a foul ball later in the game.

Despite nursing a tender shoulder over the past couple of weeks, Trey Davis was initially a scratch for Thursday but ended up serving as the designated hitter.

The Rockets play the final round game of the Bobby Murray Invitational Tournament this morning at 11 a.m. at Millbrook High School in Raleigh, and resume conference action on Tuesday night against Northern Durham at Rocket Park (7 p.m. start).