Lee outlasts SoJo to make second round
May 8—Lee County didn't make things easy on itself in the first round of the NCHSAA 3A state baseball playoffs Tuesday night at Norman Oldham Field. But all's well that ends well.
The ninth-seeded Yellow Jackets committed five errors in the 4-3 win over South Johnston, including two bobbles in the third inning that led to three unearned runs and put the host Trojans ahead by a run at that point.
Lee's Blake Carlyle crushed a two-run double in the following half-inning to restore the Jackets' lead, but pitchers Walker McDuffie and Blane McDonald still had to pitch out of two more jams and two more errors, putting up for zeroes in spite of it all, before the Jackets could escape with the win.
McDuffie threw 100 pitches in five innings, allowing seven hits and striking out 10, before McDonald came on and pitched the final two frames for a save.
The Jackets (19-9) will travel to eighth-seeded South Brunswick for a second-round game Friday night. The Cougars mercy-ruled Triton 15-0 in their first-round game. The Cougars' record is just 12-11, but their strength of schedule is by far the highest of any 3A team and they are rated No. 6 in the division by the MaxPreps power ratings.
In Tuesday's game, the visiting Trojans (12-11), who finished third in the Quad-County 3A behind very strong teams from West Johnston and C.B. Aycock, put two on with two out in the first against McDuffie, one on a clean hit and one on an error. However, he pitched out of it.
The Jackets got some help of their own in their half of the inning. Luke Sheets led off with a single into left field, and BJ Brown followed that with a walk. Then McDuffie came up, and Trojan pitcher Carter Moore threw the ball away on a comebacker to the mound, allowing Sheets to score the game's first run.
Brown generated the second run on his own, stealing third base and causing the South Johnston catcher to throw the ball away. He scored for a 2-0 lead.
Lee's bad inning came two frames later. McDuffie whiffed the first man up and then walked the next on four pitches. A Dawson Anderson put runners on the corners before the Lee defense kicked a ball on the infield to produce a run. Then McDuffie hurt his own cause when he misplayed a bunt to load the bases with just one out. The Jackets got out of it, but not before a groundout brought in the tying run and then Nick Lee singled to put the Trojans in front 3-2.
Back came the Jackets. Again it was Sheets who started things off, singling to center to open the bottom of the third. With one out, McDuffie hit a hard liner to the fence, but South recovered quickly and held him to a single. The next man up struck out, but Carlyle and his lefty bat were up to the challenge. After a wild pitch moved the runners up, he hit the 1-1 offering for a towering fly deep to left. Trojan left fielder Will Johnson raced back and nearly made the play, but it fell in for a double as both runners scored.
The Jackets had the lead back, but had to sweat it out the rest of the way and never could push across any insurance runs. McDuffie struck his way out of a first-and-second, one-out jam in the fourth. The Trojans had first and second with two out in the fifth, but McDuffie again struck out the last man in the inning. McDonald pitched around a one-out error in the sixth and a two-out error in the seventh.
