Buckingham’s blast helps WC Legion tie Coshocton

WOOSTER -- This summer, Nick Buckingham gets to be a complete baseball player again. Tuesday night, he completed a dramatic comeback for the Wayne County Senior Legion.

The locals didn't win, but Buckingham's two-out, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth enabled them to rally for a 7-7 tie with Coshocton American Legion, in a game called by darkness after 10 innings at The College of Wooster'sArt Murray Field.

The Gunslingers, now 16-1-1 and with a busy schedule ahead, fell behind the visitors 4-0 after a half-inning and were in catch-up mode the rest of the way.

But, with five relief pitchers holding Coshocton in check, Wayne County was able to chip away. Coshocton, held hitless for six straight innings, was still hanging on to a 7-4 lead after getting a pair of runs in the top of the ninth.

Nolan Bricker beat out an infield hit leading off the bottom of the ninth, his third single of the game, and he advanced to second on an overthrow. One out later, Cam Daugherty reached safely on another bad infield throw to first, bringing Buckingham to the plate. Left-handed pitcher Dyson Bowman got behind 2-0, then came in with a belt-high fastball that Buckingham smashed over the fence in left to tie the score. Both teams managed a hit in the 10th, but neither could plate a run and the three-hour game ended in a deadlock.

This year, Buckingham's first at The College of Wooster, he was strictly a pitcher for the Fighting Scots. Tuesday, he was at first base and batting clean-up, and his night also included an RBI triple before his game-tying blast.

"I just wanted to put it in play, and I knew, once the count was 2-0, he had to throw a strike in such a clutch situation," said Buckingham of his homer, the third of the summer for him. "He hadn't thrown off-speed pitches for strikes the whole time he was throwing, so I knew fastball was coming. Regardless of where it was pitched, I was swinging as hard I could, and then I just hit it. We all knew it was gone when it left the bat -- it's probably one of the best swings I've ever taken.

"I absolutely love hitting and playing the field," the Wooster High grad added. "It's part of life in baseball when you're a pitcher that you don't hit, and once it comes to college, there's a lot better hitters than me, but this one felt fantastic."

After making the drive up State Route 83, Coshocton (10-9-1) came out swinging, scoring four times in the first and then knocking starter Adam O'Brien out in the second after Brice Hammond led off with a double. Hammond scored on a sacrifice fly by Levi Jones and it was 5-0.

Jones, a West Holmes product along with teammate Scotty Troyer (3- for-4), pitched six solid innings for Coshocton, striking out five, scattering seven hits and departing with a 5-2 lead. The Gunslingers nicked Bowman for runs in the seventh, on Daugherty's RBI single, and the eighth on Drew Wharton's RBI single. After Ryan Lowe's two- run double gave Coshocton some insurance in the ninth, Buckingham erased it and Wayne County's deficit with his three-run shot off of Bowman.

"I can't say enough about Levi -- he gives us everything he has, every day," Coshocton coach Denny Gray said. "I like to keep him on a pitch count, especially since we have a tournament this weekend. Dyson is another excellent pitcher, he just got a pitch up and the kid turned on it.

"We let one get away," added Gray, whose team was coming off a weekend in which it dropped four one-run games. "We're playing good, hard baseball right now, but this is just par for the course for us right now, starting good and then letting teams come back on us."

Wayne County relievers Jordan Stutzman, Aaron Saal, Tyler Schuch and Tom Huettner combined for six hitless innings. Daugherty allowed the two runs in the ninth, but struck out four, including three in the 10th.

"We have a tournament this weekend, and in order to win it you've got to win six games. We also have nine innings (Wednesday) and nine the next night, so we've got to try and piece together some games with our pitchers," Wayne County coach Jeff Bricker said. "We held them to five runs throwing everybody, then they score and you think it's over, and boom, it isn't. That's the game.

"Tying in baseball is bad, but it was exciting," Bricker added. "They get the early lead, then we press and you saw a lot of first- pitch swings. Finally, you saw us taking some pitches, got some six- pitch at-bats, put some single runs together and gave ourselves a chance."

Bricker, Daugherty, Buckingham, Saal and Wharton all had multiple- hit games for the Gunslingers, who are at Richmond tonight and host Ashland Thursday before traveling to Tuscarawas County for this weekend's holiday tourney.

"What you run into in the summer sometimes is guys not always being ready to play, but these guys like to play," Bricker said. "We travel all over to go play, and they're all players. That's the good part of it."

Mike Plant can be reached at 330-287-1649 or mplant@the-daily- record.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MPlantTDR.