After rolling to three one-sided victories in their last three games, the Person Rockets hope to carry the momentum of those wins into the much tougher portion of their Piedmont Athletic Conference baseball schedule, which commences on Thursday at East Chapel Hill.

On Tuesday, the Rockets evened their conference record at 4-4 with a 17-7 five-inning whitewashing of the Southern Durham Spartans at Rocket Park.

The victory also improved Person’s overall record to 11-6. The Spartans fell to 1-7.

The Rockets now enter a second-half span of six conference games still with a shot at making the Division 4A playoffs. But they will need to play much better than they did the first time around against the top teams in the PAC-6, where they were outscored by a combined 23-4 in losses to East Chapel Hill, Riverside, and Jordan.

“We’ll need to be prepared to play some tough games down the stretch,” said Rocket head coach Steve Evans. “I feel good that we’ve won our share of games the last couple of weeks. The key for us will be to continue working hard in practice and focusing on the things that will make us a better team.”

Thursday’s road game against the Wildcats (4:30 p.m. start) will be Person’s first major test. ECH routed the Rockets, 10-1, back in March and was 3-3 in the conference entering Tuesday’s games.

Coming into this week, Riverside led the conference with a perfect 7-0 record, and Jordan was right behind the Pirates at 6-1.

Against the Spartans, Person’s Marc Davis made his first pitching appearance of the season, and hurled 4-plus innings to earn the win in a starting role. He blanked Southern through the first three frames before getting scored upon seven times in the next two innings, mostly the product of sub-par fielding by his teammates (five errors in the game).

Southern had just two hits in the game.

On offense, the Rockets needed just eight hits to collect their 17 runs. By the third inning, Person had built a 13-0 bulge and tacked on four more tallies in its final at bat in the fourth.

Shawn Whitt went deep for a two-run homer, while Ricky Crabtree tripled and drove in two. He also scored three times.

Adding to the production were Cody Ellis with two hits and an RBI, Trey Davis with two hits and a double, Stephen Wright, who went 1-for-1 and scored twice, and Blaine Vachieri, who had a hit and scored.

Quinten Lloyd got Southern’s only extra-base hit (a triple).

Senior pitcher Chris Morgan, who’s been nursing tendonitis in his arm, played in Tuesday’s game but will not return to the mound this season.

“He’s been told he needs to rest his arm for the next four to six weeks at least,” said Evans. “He won’t be pitching any more this year.”

Morgan had been effective in his few appearances this season, earning two wins and a save and throwing a five-inning no-hitter against the Spartans back on March 14.

Regular starters Jeremy Peed and Dylan Dickens have received valuable rest by not having to pitch at all the last three contests (all Rocket wins).