By Robert Wilson
BRANDON – Even though Madison-Ridgeland Academy had won all three of its MAIS Class 6A conference baseball series so far this year, first-year head coach Chad Lipscomb changed his starting pitcher for Game 1 for the fourth series Tuesday night.
The Patriots had lost all three Game 1s and was facing Hartfield Academy, ranked No. 1 in Mississippi and No. 33 in the country by MaxPreps and starting pitcher and Jacksonville, Ala., State signee JP Abt, who was undefeated this season and one of the favorites to win the Class 6A Player of the Year.
Lipscomb’s strategy, starting sophomore right-hander Kade Buchanan, worked and handed Hartfield its first conference loss after nine consecutive wins and ended its 13-game winning streak.
Not only did Buchanan throw a solid game in his first start on the mound this season, MRA hit two home runs (a pair of two-run bombs by junior shortstop and Jones County Junior College commitment Alex Lambert and sophomore first baseman Holt Adams) for a 5-0 victory before an estimated 250 at Hartfield’s Hawk Park.
MRA – ranked No. 14 in Mississippi by MaxPreps – improved to 16-11 overall and 7-3 in conference play and remained tied with Presbyterian Christian School, which defeated seven-time defending 6A state champion Jackson Prep 12-2 Tuesday at PCS in Hattiesburg, for second place behind Hartfield.
Hartfield dropped to 22-3 overall and 9-1 in league play and in first place, two games ahead of MRA and PCS. The Hawks hadn’t lost since an 8-2 decision to Pope John Paul II from Slidell, La., on March 13 at the Battle of the Beach on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Hartfield’s only other loss was a 5-2 decision to Class 4A Columbia Academy March 1 at Hartfield.
Game 2 is scheduled for Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at MRA in Madison. Game 3 is scheduled for Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Hartfield in Brandon.
The top two teams in 6A receive first-round byes in the playoffs, which begin in two weeks.
MRA took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when senior left fielder and Mississippi Gulf Coast CC signee Reid Gandy hit an RBI single to score junior center fielder Gunnar Swanson.
Then the Patriots jumped out to a 5-0 cushion when Allen hit a two-run home run to right center and Lambert followed with a two-run home run a few batters later down the left field line.
Buchanan allowed only two Hartfield hits (senior centerfielder and Hinds CC signee Sam Sheffield singled in the first inning and senior shortstop Cooper Howard had an infield single in the fourth inning) and no runs in four innings before being relieved by senior right-hander and Pearl River CC signee Wilkes Johnson, who had been the Game 1 starting pitcher. Johnson allowed no hits and no runs in the final three innings, striking out Abt – who came into Tuesday hitting .412, second best in 6A, with a league-high 33 hits – for the final out of the game.
“I was really proud of Kade and Wilkes,” said Lipscomb, who was an assistant for 16 seasons at MRA before taking over Allen Pavatte, now the head of school at Manchester Academy in Yazoo City. “We decided to switch the two to try and change our luck on Tuesday and just to get Wilkes back on track. The two of them made some big pitches to close out several innings. Kade is another sophomore that we are really excited about. He has stepped up earlier in the season with the bat and secured a spot in the lineup when we needed it. We have been using him mostly as a closer, but felt we needed a jolt and made the switch for Game 1 this week.
“We came out today and stuck to our game plan offensively and the guys put some good swings on the ball. Holt and Alex both hitting two run home runs in the second was big. I was a little worried that we wasted the sixth and seventh innings after getting two runners on without any outs and not scoring. But Wilkes did what we knew he could do and that was close the door. So happy for him.”
“I found out last Wednesday that I was starting the game tonight,” Buchanan said. “It was a fun atmosphere, both teams were all in. I would say trusting my fastball and throwing it to where they could hit it was what worked for me. It was real big to finally get that first win of the series and now we have the momentum coming up.”
Lambert led MRA with three hits and Swanson had two hits and scored two runs.
Hartfield must regroup and try to start a new winning streak on Thursday. The Hawks had not been shutout in 40 games, dating back to a 9-0 loss to Prep in the regular season last year.
“It was a tough night for us at the plate,” Hartfield coach Justin Smith said. “I was proud of JP settling in after a rough start (Abt pitched five innings and had six strikeouts). MRA is a solid and athletic team so we will need to bounce back Thursday at their place to even the series.”
Abt was one of three pitchers in the 6A to have at least four wins without a loss (Abt’s teammate, Woods Roberson, and PCS’ Bankston Walters, were both 5-0 going into this week).
“We will be perfectly fine. It’s a part of baseball to take one the way we did today,” said Abt, who dropped to 4-1 and ranked fifth in the league in strikeouts going into this week. “I fully believe we will bounce back and finish 2-1 this week. We play pretty well on the road. It gives us a different type of energy. We’ll be just fine.”
