Morehead, Ky — It just wasn’t meant to be for Lawrence Co. ( 35-6 ) as the Dawgs fell to Rowan Co. ( 39-3 ) and Kentucky Gatorade player of the Year AJ. Hacker 5-0 on a beautiful Saturday afternoon at John “Sonny” Allen Field on the campus of Morehead St. University in the first round of the State Tournament.
Rowan Co. who won their 31st straight game scored two in the bottom of the first inning even though the Vikings didn’t hit one ball hard. The Dawgs defense didn’t help themselves by committing two errors in the inning.
In the fifth frame with the score still 2-0 CJ Fairchild replaced Lucas Maynard gave up a leadoff single and walked two Vikings sandwiched around a couple outs before Bryce Blevins was brought in to face left handed hitting Hacker with the bases loaded and Hacker hit one off the netting in right field for a long single that played all three runners and Rowan Co. stretched out their lead to 5-0. Tyler Maynard pitched a scoreless sixth inning for LCHS.
The Bulldogs potent offense only mustered three singles in the contest a Bryce Blevins line drive into right center field that moved Tyler Maynard after he singled to third with two outs but both runners were left stranded. In the sixth inning with two outs Jackson Feltner lined a single up the middle but was also stranded.
The Bulldog pitchers only allowed 4 hits on the day as Lucas Maynard took the loss going four innings for the Dawgs giving up zero earned runs and pitched well in his final outing.
Fairchild went 2/3 inning and gave up 3 runs, Blevins went 1/3 inning and Tyler Maynard went 1 inning.
Lawrence Co. had a record breaking season and will miss four unbelievable seniors in Austin Roe, Lucas Maynard, Hunter Crum and Tyler Blackburn.
The Dawgs return a good nucleus with seniors to be CJ Fairchild, Jackson Feltner, Tyler Maynard, juniors to be Ethan Whitt and Jacob Fletcher, sophomores to be Bryce Blevins and Brayden Maynard along with freshman to be Abner Collinsworth, Jake Derifield, Gage Meek along with a host of youngsters.
Lawrence Co. Head Travis Feltner
COACH’S COMMENTS
“… I think we had a few guys that had some nerves. That ballgame should have been 0-0 in the fifth inning and anyone that was here knows that. We knew runs were going to be hard to come by. Our pitching was very good. Lucas Maynard was good once again he is a strike throwing machine. We walked a couple guys in the fifth and came back to bite us.”
“… Give them credit they were the better team today. Hacker is a Division 1 player for a reason. I don’t think we were intimidated by him at all but we couldn’t put anything together. I thought the ball Bryce hit was going to get to the wall and Tyler would have scored but they cut it off. Only real chance we had to score. We wanted to keep our strikeouts down and put balls into play against their defense.”
“… We had a great year, Special group of seniors and we are going to miss all four of them. They have never been perfect and they don’t have to be, but they have been perfect to Coach. I can’t say enough good things about them. We won 35 games which has never been done here. As a coach in my 21 years this is #1 for me I got my son on the team and sometimes that’s a negative it hasn’t always been easy. It’s a special group of guys that will forever have a place in our program.”
