Lexington hopes quick decision will result in longer tourney run

Wednesday morning’s Spring Fling schedule was plagued by rain delays.

And the one that hit at Blackman High School during the top of the second inning gave Lexington coach Adam Harrington time to make a big decision on his pitching rotation going forward in the tournament.

With his team up 5-0 and bases loaded with no outs, Harrington made the decision to take ace Raleigh Odle out of the game and put Luke Buckley into the game.

The immediate result was Buckley continued to shutout Spring Hill as the Tigers advanced with an 11-0 victory.

“It happened to us two years ago,” Harrington said. “We didn’t have a rain delay, but we jumped on top of a team. With the pitch-count rules, it allows us to save our No. 1 for this afternoon.”

Harrington said that the rain delay didn’t play a part in making the decision.

“Once we got up by five and had bases loaded, we felt we were going to put more runs up, so we started getting Buckley loose,” Harrington said. “If the game would have been close, we would have stayed with Raleigh.”

Buckley was already figured into Lexington’s pitching rotation and would have probably gone later in the day.

“I was ready to go when they needed me,” Buckley said. “The rain did play an effect, but I was ready to go.”

Buckley pitched Lexington to the District 14-AA title two weeks ago, and he was ready to go early or late on Wednesday.

And a 7-0 lead when he took the mound helped.

“You get to pitch with the lead, and you can pitch with confidence,” Buckley said. “You have nothing lose. You throw strikes and let them hit the ball.”

Buckley allowed no runs on two hits in five innings of action, while striking out four and walking two.

In Game 1 on Tuesday, Lexington played the defending state champions Spring Hill. The Tigers were taken out of their rhythm offensively, but those seven runs in the first two innings helped get things going.

“We still didn’t hit the way we should have been,” Harrington said. “We swung at bad pitches. We weren’t swinging at our pitches.”

Reach Michael Odom at michodom@jacksonsun.com or 731-425-9754. Follow him on Twitter @JSWriterMichael.