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History Made: Buckingham baseball wins program’s first ever region title

Photo by Bart Isley

 

All it takes is the right group of players at the right time to take a program that’s doing things the right way and lift them to completely unprecedented heights. 

 

Buckingham County’s current crop is doing exactly that.

 

“These kids have grown a lot this year,” said coach Trey Lawson. “We started out kind of slow out of the gate (this season) and they put the work in and really matured over the season.”   

 

In a wild, 8-7 win over Stuarts Draft in the Region 2B title game, the No. 2-seeded Knights won the program’s first ever region championship, punctuated with a brilliant throw from right field by Rocco Raynor to catcher Camden Allen for a no doubt tag on a play at the plate to seal it on the game’s final at bat.

 

“We’ve been playing together since we were young, it’s great to do this with them,” Allen said

 

In this one, Buckingham jumped out fast, building a 6-0 lead by the end of the second inning. Cam Newton got it started with a two-out single to center in the first that scored Justin Gunter and Ethan Walter who was running for Allen who’d reached on a single. The next four runs came in the second, with Braedyn Schaeffer getting it going by notching an RBI single. 

 

Schaeffer, one of the Knights’ only two seniors, was gutting out a minor injury suffered pitching in the region semifinal and eventually gave way to Walter, a freshman, to take over at short. 

 

“I wanted to stay in but I trusted Ethan, the freshman,” Schaeffer said. “He’s got it, I trust him.”  

 

After Schaeffer’s single, Harrison Mitchell scored on an error and Gunter knocked in Schaeffer. Newton added the fourth run of the inning by knocking in Raynor on a ground out. 

 

With that 6-0 lead in the books, Buckingham began the process of trying to hold on to the lead over the next five innings. That meant leaning on its pitching staff. Gunter had already thrown the Knights to a win over Central in the region quarterfinals on Monday. Like he has all season, he put in four strong innings, scattering five hits and only giving up one earned run. 

 

“I love it, I’m always up for competition, always up for a challenge,” Gunter said. “I’ve been with (these guys) since I was 10, 11 years old…they’re the only ones I’d want to win it with.”

 

After that, Buckingham had to kind of figure it out. That led Lawson to turn to a freshman who’d mostly played junior varsity games this year but came up in certain spots and for the playoffs — Avery Schaeffer, younger brother of Braedyn, the team’s other normal starter along with Gunter. Avery Schaeffer was up to the task, allowing just one earned run and minimizing the Cougars’ potential damage while maintaining the Knights’ lead. 

 

“He stepped up, he had to step up and he played well,” said the elder Schaeffer. “I knew he’d play well.”

 

Draft kept chipping away, scoring once in the third and two runs in each of the fourth and fifth innings. But the Knights’ offense gave Schaeffer some more cushion with two runs in the fifth on a balk and a bases loaded hit-by-pitch to push the lead back out to 8-5.

 

Schaeffer allowed one more run in the sixth before Eli Bryant, who also went 3-for-3 at the plate on the day, stepped in to pitch the seventh. An RBI single from Draft cut the Knights lead down to just one run, but Bryant induced a fly out that set the stage for the game’s final sequence that ended in Raynor’s throw home to Allen. 

 

“I just started screaming ‘FOUR’ and saw the dude coming, I caught the ball and just tagged him and I don’t remember much after that,” Allen said.

 

Maybe he doesn’t remember the aftermath, but he, the Knights and Buckingham fans will certainly remember the results, a first-ever region title for Buckingham’s baseball program and a chance to make even more history when the state tournament starts next week.

 

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