Monday, April 12, 2010

Lone Oak bears watching ...

Spring break is over, and that is when high school baseball starts to get serious. The All A Classic regional tournament begins this week, and some of the bigger schools wade into district play.

Lone Oak meets Paducah Tilghman on Tuesday at Brooks Stadium after a nice trip to Florida that saw the Purple Flash beat one state-ranked team (No. 18 Glasgow) and two clubs (Glasgow and Somerset) that were undefeated before falling to Lone Oak.

The Flash (10-3) went 3-2 in Florida, also beating a team from Ohio, but the week ended on a slightly down note with losses to Russell County and North Bullitt.

"I think we found out that if we make plays," coach Geno Miller said, "we're capable of beating good teams. But we also found out that when we don't, we can lose to just about anybody on our schedule."

Lone Oak's young squad has plenty of long-term potential — the question is whether it will start to fulfill it this spring. Junior Eric Winn, who is also Lone Oak's catcher, was on the mound for the 7-1 win over Somerset. Freshman Lucas Englert worked five innings in the 3-1 win over Glasgow, getting relief help from senior Jesse Turner.

Englert is likely to draw the mound assignment against Tilghman, primarily because "it's his turn to pitch," Miller said.

Comparing scores in baseball is not a sound strategy, given the differences in pitching matchups, but Glasgow bombed First Region favorite Graves County 15-2 last week. Lone Oak also beat the Carroll (Ohio) team that beat Graves 6-4.

• There is no clear-cut favorite for the All A Classic, which begins on Tuesday at two sites, Murray and Mayfield. Murray hosts for the rest of the week and the two-time defending champion Tigers are again a top contender.

St. Mary is the No. 1 seed, followed by Murray, Ballard Memorial, Heath and Reidland.

We'll take a closer look at the tournament in Tuesday's Sun.

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