Lassiter wins another road playoff series to advance to semifinals

May 11—DOUGLASVILLE — Gavin Ruegger scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch in the top of the seventh inning to lift Lassiter to a 7-6 Game 3 victory over South Paulding in the Class AAAAAA state quarterfinals on Tuesday.

It marked the third straight playoff matchup this postseason the Trojans lost Game 1 only to come back and win the best-of-three series. It is the seventh straight true road playoff series win and a fourth straight in a Game 3.

"I don't think the guys like doing field work," Lassiter coach Kyle Rustay joked after watching his team survive and advance to the state semifinals for the second straight season. "They have embraced the environment (of playing on the road). It's kind of an us against the world mentality."

The win sends the Trojans (28-10) into the final four where they will face Region 6AAAAAA foe Allatoona. The teams split their two games this season — the Buccaneers won at Lassiter 4-3 in mid-March, while the Trojans won the game at Allatoona 5-1 a month later. Now, Lassiter will try to win an eighth straight road series as the semifinals will get underway with a doubleheader on Saturday in Acworth.

"It's a short trip," Rustay said. "We don't mind that. They are a quality, quality opponent. There's no secrets at this point with anybody. Let's just suit up and play."

Lassiter looked like they were going to make an easy day out of it on Tuesday when it scored five runs over the first two innings. The Trojans scored two in the first on a solo home run by Ryan Martin and back-to-back doubles by Nick Newton and Colin Strovinskas.

They added three more in the second on an RBI double by Brady Kimberlin and a two-run seeing-eye bloop triple by Newton that landed just inches inside the right field line. Newton, who hit two home runs in Game 2 on Monday, finished Game 3 2-for-4 with a double, triple and two RBIs.

From that point on, South Paulding's pitching settled in and the Spartans (28-8), with a little help from the Trojans, began to chip away at the lead.

A walk, one of six free passes on the day, and an error set up South Paulding in the third inning. Back-to-back RBI singles by Harrison Ratner and Lawson Folds cut the deficit to 5-2.

Two more walks in the fourth helped spur a four-run inning as the Spartans took the lead. An RBI groundout from Brendan Gates made it 5-3. Tyler Chatham followed with an RBI single and three batters later Ratner came through with a two-run double suddenly South Paulding had a 6-5 lead.

After relief pitcher Jared Webb got through the bottom of the fifth inning unscathed, Lassiter got the tying run in the top of the sixth after a well-timed pep talk in the dugout.

"That was all about taking the emotion out of it," Rustay said. "We were ticking toward overheating. (South Paulding's) players were in it, their crowd was in it and it felt like our guys were getting caught up in that and getting a little too emotional. All we said was take the emotion out of it. Go and do your job."

With two outs Dixon Noland doubled into the left field corner. Martin, who finished 3-for-3 with his homer, double and two RBIs, followed with a single to left to score Noland to tie the game 6-6.

In the top of the seventh, Colin Strovinskas led off with a single and was replaced with Ruegger as a courtesy runner. Garrett Reid followed with a well-executed sacrifice bunt to move Ruegger to second, then Eric Brown dropped a single just in front of a diving Gates.

With runners on first and third, Cole Brewer, who pitched a complete game to win Game 1 of the series was brought in to try to stop the rally. After getting a strikeout for the second out of the inning, his 1-1 pitch to Rylam Lewallen sailed high over the catcher's head and went to the backstop allowing Ruegger to score.

With a 7-6 lead, Webb, the sophomore left hander needed only nine pitches to get the last three outs, striking out Brewer looking to close the game. Webb pitched 3 2/3 innings, allowed one run on one hit. He walked three and struck out two to pick up the victory.

"What can you say?" Rustay said. "No moment is too big for (Webb). It was an incredible effort when we needed it by an incredible young man."