Jim Mashek

LAKERS WIPE OUT EARLY DEFICIT WITH FIVE-RUN THIRD INNING; RAIDERS FINISH MEMORABLE SEASON WITH 25-14 RECORD

Warren East head baseball coach Wes Shaver wanted to piece together what was left of his pitching staff in Wednesday night’s KHSAA 4th Region championship game at WKU’s Nick Denes Field.

It looked to be a formidable task, all along, but the Raiders had reason to be optimistic. They’d played their best baseball of the season in May, winning the KHSAA 15th District title after a weather-related odyssey that moved the tournament from Allen County-Scottsville High School to the artificial turf of Bowling Green High School’s Harold J. Stihl Field.

That gave the Raiders a head start of sorts, when they took the field against Monroe County in 4th Region quarterfinal play on Monday evening. They whipped the Falcons, 8-0, and rolled into the championship game with a resounding 9-3 victory over a talented Franklin-Simpson squad on Tuesday night.

Sanford brought junior outfielder/pitcher Brenden Bratcher to get Warren East out of a third-inning jam against Franklin-Simpson, before going back to sophomore right-hander Brooks Vincent to carry the Raiders to the lopsided win over the Wildcats.

In the distance, of course, were the Russell County Lakers. with the impressive .332 team batting average and plenty of power.

“They’re a good team,” Sanford said after Tuesday’s victory.

The Lakers collected 15 hits — including four for extra bases — against three Raiders pitchers in a 12-3 rout of the Raiders before an overflow crowd at The Nick.

“They never take a bad swing on anything, it was just wild,” Sanford said when it was over. “They sat on everything that we threw and put good swings on it. Every ball they hit was hit hard.”

Russell County earned its 30th victory against 10 defeats, while Warren East finishes another solid season with a 25-14 record. The Raiders got hot when it counted, winning 12 of 14 games before squaring off against the Lakers. Warren East had also twice defeated Russell County, winning 10-9 on the Raiders’ home field on May 2 and claiming a 9-2 triumph over the Lakers two weeks later in Russell Springs.

“We just wanted to leave it on the field,” Sanford said. “I don’t think anybody is going to walk out here with any regret tonight. They played hard. Russell County played better.

“This group, I’m super proud of them. They’ve grown so much, as a team … I think they’ll remember this team for the rest of their lives. I’m happy for them. I know I’m supposed to be disappointed, but I’m still happy for them.

“That’s what Warren East baseball is about … trying to create memories, create a lifestyle that’s going to help these guys be successful after high school.”

The Raiders grabbed a 3-1 lead in the top of the second inning, creating a brief sense of optimism in the Warren East dugout before the Lakers started lashing the ball all over the place. The top of the lineup produced four consecutive hits — capped by RCHS catcher Jack Shearer’s two-run double in the right-field corner that put the Lakers in front, 5-3.

Russell County batted around when the Lakers’ Tanner Stringer lined an RBI single to left field, before the Raiders’ Maddox Tarrence threw RCHS third baseman Walker Stephens out near the plate. Sanford had planned to go with Tray Price in the fourth, but bringing him in from center field while the Lakers were still taking their cuts would have hurt his warm-up routine.

“It was like they knew what was coming in there,” Sanford said with a sigh.

Warren East first baseman Grant White lined an RBI single to right field with one out in the top of the second, for the Raiders’ first run of the game. In the third, leadoff man Brenden Bratcher lined a single to left-center field before Tarrence crushed a pitch from the Lakers’ Trace Stringer for an RBI double to the wall in right-center field.

Hayden Hinton’s line-drive single to center field scored Tarrence, to make it 3-1, before Stringer settled in to retire the next two Warren East batters.

He wouldn’t give up another hit until the sixth, at which point the Lakers were cruising with a 7-3 lead.

Stringer went 2-for-2 at the plate with a triple and a sacrifice fly, while scoring three runs, in his leadoff spot. He was named the tournament MVP and was joined on the all-tournament team by RCHS teammates Mayes Grosser, Jack Shearer and Austin Bartrug. Bartrug fired a three-hitter in guiding the Lakers past Greenwood, 6-2, in the opening semifinal on Tuesday evening.

Warren East’s Maddox Tarrence, Brenden Bratcher and Aiden Barrick were also named to the all-tournament team, along with Franklin-Simpson’s Brady Delk and Gavin Link, Greenwood’s Nathan Howard and Cyler Talley, South Warren’s Ethan Reynolds, Logan County’s Kade Wall, Barren County’s Jackson Reece and Monroe County’s Reece Bartley.

It was Logan County that let Russell County off the hook on Monday, when the Raiders rallied with four runs in the final three innings to stun the Cougars, 7-6, on Stringer’s walk-off hit, a line-drive single to left-center field. It was the first time Russell County had trailed the entire game.

By Wednesday night, the Lakers’ bats were hot and ready to produce.

“I knew we had to hit the daggone baseball,” RCHS coach David Rexroat said, “because (Warren East) beat us, 9-2 and 10-9, earlier in the year. So we knew we had to put up a lot of runs, and we did.”

The Lakers will face an opponent from the KHSAA’s 8th Region, a squad from the Lexington area, in first-round play of the state tournament on Thursday.

Warren East coach Wes Sanford and his staff will lose four senior players for the 2025 season, including catcher Micah Ford, outfielder-pitcher Tray Price, outfielder Maddox Tarrence and first baseman Grant White, but Tarrence believes they’ve got the core group to contend again in the KHSAA’s 15th District.

“(Russell County) seems to get hot in the postseason,” Tarrence said. “They’ve got a good group of guys coming back (at Warren East). This is a really close team.”