CHILLICOTHE — The Miami Trace Panthers varsity baseball team was off for 10 days before resuming play with a Frontier Athletic Conference game at Chillicothe Tuesday, April 12.
Senior Conner Bucher may very well have set a Miami Trace school record, striking out 18 Cavaliers as the Panthers defeated Chillicothe, 4-1.
The win moved the Panthers to 5-0 overall, 1-0 in the FAC.
“We know what we’ve got in Conner,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Smith said. “Obviously making Second Team, All-Ohio last year. He’s just an excellent baseball player.”
Bucher allowed two hits, one unearned run and walked one batter.
“He just had a great game and we needed it,” Smith said. “We hadn’t played in 10 days and it felt like the first game of the year. We didn’t actually do much offensively that night, so, we needed every bit of his 18 strikeouts.
“It was just a great performance,” Smith said. “That either ties a school record or beats it, one of the two. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone else at Miami Trace striking out 18 in a game.
“Conner put on a pitching performance like back when I had the State championship pitchers (for Washington High School in 2000),” Smith said. “They would average that type of number.”
Smith was referring to a dominating trio of pitchers that carried the Blue Lions to the State championship 22 years ago: Scott Lewis, Danny King and Todd Brown.
Miami Trace scored one run in the top of the second, one in the fifth and another in the sixth to take a 3-0 lead.
Chillicothe scored what proved to be its only run of the game in the bottom of the sixth.
Miami Trace got that run back with a run in the seventh.
For Miami Trace, Cole Little was 2 for 3 with one RBI and one run scored.
Bucher had one hit and scored one run.
Dillon Hyer had one hit and scored one run and Austin Boedecker had one hit.
Daniel Hurff took the loss in relief for the Cavaliers. He pitched 2.2 innings with three hits and three runs (one earned) with two walks and three strikeouts.
Ayden Hutchinson started for Chillicothe and pitched 4.1 innings with two hits, one unearned run, two walks and seven strikeouts.
Mason Siberell and Luke Rinehart hit singles for the Cavs.
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