LEXINGTON — Adam Johnson continued his assault on the baseball Tuesday at Lexington High School.
A senior, Johnson stroked three extra-base hits and the Minutemen rallied for an 8-6 win over backyard and Ohio Cardinal Conference rival Clear Fork.
Lex (6-5, 5-2) and the Colts (6-6, 2-5) will complete the home-and-home series at Clear Fork today.
Johnson’s two-run triple in the bottom of the third inning plated Brody Basilone and Evan Lee and gave the Minutemen a 4-3 lead. Johnson would score on a Nate Arnholt hit for a 5-3 lead and Lex would never trail again.
“He is on fire right now,” first-year Lex coach Kevin Morrow said of Johnson. “I’ve seen him do it before. I was the junior varsity coach the last few years and he came down and played a few games for me last year. He hit the ball all over the place.”
The Colts scored two runs in the first and another in the second off Lex starter Zach Temple, but the Minutemen got back into it with a pair of runs in the home half of the second. Temple helped his own cause with a two-run single to right off Clear Fork starter Lee Snyder that landed in no-man’s land.
“That ball should have been caught,” Clear Fork coach Rusty Staab said. “We needed somebody to take charge and be aggressive and go get it.
“We got the early lead and Lee pitched well, then as usual our defense fell apart.”
Clear Fork scored a run in the top of the fifth to cut Lexington’s advantage to 5-4, but the Minutemen responded with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Lex added an insurance run in the sixth.
Temple earned the win, striking out five and walking three. He gave up eight hits.
“We had Temple on the ropes and we let him off the hook,” Staab said. “We had the bases loaded, but we just couldn’t come up with a big hit.
“That has been the story of our season. We are missing that hit that would let us know we are going to be all right.”
Snyder took the loss, striking out seven and walking four.
Lee and Arnholt each had two hits for the Minutemen. Lee doubled.
Snyder, Hunter Evans and Mason Swank each had two hits for the Colts. Evans belted a home run and Chase Baker had a double.
Madison maintained its two game lead in the OCC standings with its 8-3 win over Orrville. Morrow knows his Minutemen can’t afford to stumble. Lex and Madison will meet in a pivotal two-game series next week.
“It’s a battle every time out in this conference,” Morrow said. “We need to stay within striking distance of Madison if we want to have any shot of winning the league.”
The Minutemen returned a wealth of pitching talent from last year’s district runner-up team. Temple, Lee, who has verbally committed to Mid-American Conference power Kent State, and Brody Basilone, last year’s OCC Pitcher of the Year, all were instrumental in Lexington’s run to the conference title last spring.
“We have several talented pitchers with big game experience and we knew they would lead the way for us,” Morrow said. “The real question mark for us was our offense. Our pitching is going to keep us in most games and our offense is really starting to come around. We are beginning to hit the ball.”
Temple, who worked 8.2 innings and took the hard-luck loss in last year’s district championship game, has anchored the staff this spring.
“He doesn’t overpower a lot of people, but he changes speeds well,” Morrow said. “He changes speeds on his change-up, if that makes any sense. He throws it slow and slower and then his fastball only touches the lower-80s, but it looks fast compared to his off-speed stuff.”
While the Minutemen are still in the hunt to repeat as conference champion, the Colts find themselves five games out of first place with seven to play. Clear Fork was considered a preseason conference contender.
“Right now we’re just trying to figure out how to win a game,” Staab said. “We are in a position where all we can do now is look to the postseason.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
