Buford and Pike County each flexed their hitting and pitching muscles Saturday, splitting the first two games of the Class AA state championship series at Buford.
They’ll decide who’s best on Memorial Day, at 4 p.m. in Buford.
Pike County (31-7), the Region 4 champions, took the first game 10-3 on the strength of a crafty pitching performance by Georgia State signee Kody Adams.
Buford (30-4), the Region 6 champs, rebounded to win 14-4 in six innings, behind an eight-strike out effort from Georgia Tech signee Jake Burnette (8-0).
Buford won the coin toss and will be the home team Monday. The Wolves will throw another Tech signee, Josh Heddinger in the final, while the Pirates will counter with senior Lance Shelton, who was the decisive Game 3 winner for Pike County in both the quarterfinals (Blessed Trinity) and the semifinals (Lovett).
Pike County coach Don Hanson said the quarterfinal and semifinal wins over two of Buford’s region rivals gave his team confidence entering Saturday.
“We knew Buford had a great program, no question about that,” Hanson said. “But we knew we could come in and produce some runs, and we knew [Adams] would keep the ball down and give us a chance to win.”
The Game 1 loss by Buford was the first for the Wolves during the playoffs this season. But coach Tony Wolfe was confident his club would respond.
“I knew [Burnette] would come out and compete for us,” Wolfe said. “And we swung the bats well, too. I was glad to see us come back and really compete like we did.”
After being stifled in Game 1 by Adams, Buford scored in every inning in Game 2 and banged five homers, including two by junior first baseman Troy Herterick.
In Game 1, Adams went six strong innings, surrendering just one earned run on three hits.
The Pirates roughed up Buford’s Sam Clay, who entered the game with a record of 7-1 and an ERA of 1.59 in 44 innings this season.
He was done in by a four-run fifth inning, with Pike County senior catcher Chris Long playing a big role in both.
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