Published: June 06, 2009 10:21 pm      

Bulldogs back to state

PIKEVILLE — Any way you slice it, one thing is readily evident: Pitching wins in baseball, and in sophomore Chandler Shepherd, Lawrence County has it in spades.

Shepherd threw his second shutout of the Semi-State 8 Saturday evening and third straight in the postseason, striking out 12 and scattering four hits to lead the Bulldogs to the 7-0 win over East Carter to advance to the Elite Eight of high school baseball in Kentucky next week at Applebee’s Park.

“He’s pretty impressive,” said Bulldog voach Travis Feltner, who has guided his team to the state tournament for the second straight year – they were state runners-up a year ago – in his first season as head coach. “He was awesome. He really stepped up. I’m proud of the kids.”

For the tournament, Shepherd pitched 14 innings, giving the Raiders only eight hits and no runs while striking out 26 and walking only one.

“I wasn’t thinking about (strikeouts),” he said. “A shutout isn’t an individual thing; the guys played great defense, (catcher) Jordan Miller works his tail off and the coaches as well. We do this as a team.”

Shepherd was co-MVP of the Semi-State, sharing the honors with junior Shane Pack; in the finals, he was 3-of-3 with a walk, scoring twice and hit the big shot of the game: A three-run homer in the second over the wall in left-center to stretch the lead to 4-0.

“He’s a real catalyst for us,” said Feltner. “We left 12 on base this morning (in the 3-2 loss), but tonight, he got the job done.”

“Pack kind of broke our backs there,” said coach Jeremiah Shearer of East Carter.”(Derek) Stapleton showed a lot of guts for us. He just ran out of gas tonight, but pitching all three games says a lot about him.”

Stapleton has the odd honor of being the pitcher of record in all three Semi-State games, having started the first and third and thrown in relief in Saturday afternoon’s middle game.

“Hats off to East Carter,” said Feltner of his opponent. “I have a lot of respect for Jeremiah and the kind of program he runs. (Stapleton) was gutsy all week.”

Lawrence (23-15) got on the scoreboard in the first when Pack’s infield single was compounded by a throwing error to put him in scoring position. Miller’s single to left put the Bulldogs on the scoreboard to stay.

After Pack’s bomb in the second, the Dogs plated three more in the fourth, opening with three straight infield singles and scoring a run on an error, a single and a bases-loaded walk.

East Carter (21-15) had one opportunity to score in the sixth when Tommy Carper singled and Tyler Jackson followed with a double to put runners in scoring position with one out. But Shepherd did what aces do in that situation, striking out the second and third hitters in the Raider lineup to end the threat.

“Chandler had a great game,” said Pack of his teammate.

Lawrence County got solid production from the bottom of its lineup, with four of the seven runs coming from the bottom third. Nine-hitter Nick Hackney had four hits in the tournament and scored twice after reaching on a walk and a single in the closer.

Jackson, the only senior on the East Carter roster, had two hits off Shepherd, leading off the game with a single before doubling in the sixth. “He’s had a special season,” Shearer said of his leadoff batter, who boasts a batting average near .500 and a perfect 4.0 grade-point average. “He has a special place in our program.”

EAST CARTER 000 000 0 – 0 4 2

LAWRENCE CO. 130 300 x – 7 9 0

Derek Stapleton, Tommy Carper (4) and Ty Back; Chandler Shepherd and Jordan Miller. 2B – Ramsey Compton (LC), Tyler Jackson (EC). HR – Shane Pack (LC).