In the first game of the Friday slate of the 2025 Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Baseball State Tournament, the First and Second Region champions McCracken County and Lyon County squared off in an intense battle. Thanks to some timely hitting, the Mustangs secured their spot in the state quarterfinals with the 3-1 win over the Lyons.
“We took some punches today,” McCracken County head coach Zach Hobbs said following the win. “Lyon County is a very good baseball team. I hate it for those guys, I have a lot of respect for Ricky Baker and the coaching staff. They’re a great team. Our guys just executed today. I told Ricky before the game it’s going to come down to who gets some timely hits and who doesn’t, and we got a few timely hits today.”
The away team, Lyons took no time adding their lone run in the top of the first. With a runner on first and two outs, Peyton Williams ripped a ball off the left-center wall for a RBI triple, but was gunned out at home trying to stretch the hit into an inside-the-park.
The Mustangs led off their bats in the second with two consecutive singles, and after moving each of them over a base with a sacrifice bunt, junior Josh Penrod came to the plate. He delivered in the biggest way with a double down the left field line that scored two, giving McCracken the early 2-1 lead.
The next batter, Braden Casebier, drove a ground ball into centerfield to drive in one, increasing the Mustangs’ lead to two.
Penrod not only influenced this game with his bat, but also on the mound. He got the start for the Mustangs, offering 5.1 innings pitched. In that span, he allowed just three hits and one run, all while striking out five. Besides that slip in the first inning, the junior was as reliable as it gets, and gave McCracken a real chance to win the game.
“You know, Penrod hasn’t hit a lot this year, not because he can’t hit, but because the way our lineup is set up,” Hobbs said. “We thought he was a good matchup with a fastball pitcher, and it worked. Really proud of him, and what a day for Josh Penrod.”
“In the bullpen, I felt amazing,” Penrod said following his great performance. “I had some trouble finding stuff at the start, but I had a great defense behind me. It just gave me all the confidence in the world to keep going. I knew even if I didn’t bring my best stuff, we still got it.”
There were points in this game where the Lyons were threatening, but just couldn’t come up with any more runs thanks to some great defensive plays by McCracken. In the fourth inning, Lyon had the bases loaded with just one out, but a perfectly executed 4-6-3 double play ended the inning.
A contributor of some of these special defensive plays was catcher Kendrick Dunning. With runners on the corners with two outs in the sixth, Dunning fired a bullet down to second to catch the runner stealing and extinguish a flame started by the Lyon offense.
His final play came in the seventh. The tying run was at the plate with a runner on first, giving Lyon just one last chance to score. On the third pitch of the at-bat, Dunning whipped a throw down to first to back-pick the runner for the second out, killing any momentum Lyon County created at the start of the inning.
The final score ended at 3-1 with the Mustangs on top. Due to weather and field conditions, the back half of Friday’s slate had to be postponed to Saturday. This will push the quarterfinal match between the Mustangs and South Warren to Sunday at 1 p.m. EST at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington.
This game marked the last for Lyon County head coach Ricky Baker, who has commanded this team since the 2019 season. As a skipper, Baker captured two Second Region championships. His first was in 2021, where the Lyons battled all the way to the state semifinals.
“I couldn’t ask for a better ending than coming here to the state tournament,” Baker said. “I’m thankful for every team that I’ve had, and all of the effort and hard work they’ve put in. I’d like to say I left this program better than where I found it. I hope that’s a true statement. I hope these younger guys see how the older guys have worked. I know this senior group watch the 2021 group, and how they worked. I just want the program to keep building up and head towards the right direction.”
An incredible run caps off Baker’s impressive tenure with the Lyons baseball team. Now he plans on taking a different role in the Lyon County athletic department as the girls’ basketball coach. The move allows him to take time to watch his son, Eli, continue his baseball career at Radford University next fall.
With McCracken County advancing and Lyon closing a memorable era in their history, Friday’s matchup was more than just a postseason matchup, but an important stepping stone for both of these teams. The road to a state title continues for the Mustangs, while a proud chapter closes for the Lyons.
MCCRACKEN COUNTY 3, LYON COUNTY 1
LYNC 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 1 3 0
MCCR 0 3 0 0 0 0 X — 3 9 1
WP: LYNC — E. Baker
2B: MCCR — J. Penrod, W. Fox
3B: LYNC — P. Williams
TB: MCCR — J. Penrod 3, B. Truitt 2, B. Casebier 1, K. Dunning 1, L. Gagnon 1, L. Grace 1; LYNC — P. Williams 3, J. Bingham 1, T. Hurst 1
HBP: MCCR — W. Fox, J. Penrod, N. Godwin; LYNC — H. Phillips 2, T. Hurst
CS: MCCR — L. Gagnon; LYNC — J. Bingham
E: MCCR — E. Gagnon
RECORDS: MCCRACKEN COUNTY (29-8); LYON COUNTY (21-8)