Forrest Dwyer was struggling early in the Western C quarterfinal game between Winthrop and Hall-Dale on Thursday, leaving Winthrop coach Marc Fortin with a tough decision.

When Dwyer walked three batters in the third inning, Fortin considered taking Dwyer out of the game in favor of Jake Steele. No. 3 pitcher Easton Morang was unavailable because he pitched in Tuesday's Mountain Valley Conference game.

If Dwyer was pulled at that point, he would have been available to pitch in the regional semifinal on Saturday, had Winthrop survived to beat Hall-Dale (the Ramblers did 9-5).

"That wasn't the way we diagramed it, so we didn't want to do that," Fortin said.

Dwyer survived, despite not having his best stuff, because of his ability to adjust. When he had trouble getting his curve ball over and keeping his fastball down in the zone, Dwyer tried to throw his fastball in to Hall-Dale's hitters.

"We want them to be swing, and we don't want anything on the outside part of the plate. We want the defense to make plays," Winthrop catcher Jordan Conant said. "We stay away from the curveball when he doesn't have it."

After the third inning, in which he walked in three runs, Dwyer induced four ground balls and an infield popup and struck out two in the next two innings. He ran into trouble again in the sixth, when he allowed an infield single on a ball he couldn't quite handle, and hit the No. 9 batter. He allowed two more runs on a triple by Dylan Dupont, but was able to finish off the game throwing 124 pitches.