Madison head coach Doug Rickert says the 1st inning of games has been “a killer” for his youthful Rams this season. That trend continued in a 10-6 loss to Lexington in Game 1 of a doubleheader with the Minutemen.

 

Lex peppered Madison starting pitcher Brandon Atwell for 8 runs in the first two innings of play, lighting up the scoreboard for 6 in the opening frame. Minutemen skipper Kevin Morrow says his team has struggled to put away teams after building early leads this season, which Lex would again fail to do against the Rams.

 

Madison scored 5 unanswered runs with 4 of them coming in the bottom half of the 4th to make it an 8-5 game heading into the final inning of play. The Minutemen would put together a couple of runs in their half of the 7th, however, that helped them close out the game to stay perfect in OCC action.

 

Jared Strickler picked up the win for Lex giving up 5 runs on 9 hits with 7 K’s in 6 innings of work and going 2-3 from the dish with an RBI and 2 runs. Ben Vore went 2-4, with 2 runs and an RBI, Noah Pack went 1-3 with 2 RBI and Owen Murray went 1-4 with 2 RBI and a run.

 

Trenton Osborne was 2-2 with 2 RBI for Madison. Teammate Cal Rickert went 2-4 with 2 runs, Bryce Lee went 2-4 with 2 RBI and a run scored, and Bronson Henry finished 2-4 with an RBI.