The Blowfish season concluded this week as the team lost in the opening round of the Coastal Plain League playoffs to the Boone Bigfoots 7-4. 

With the loss, the Blowfish snapped its two-year streak of advancing to the CPL championship series. Lexington County won the CPL championship in 2023 and finished runner-up last year. 

It also marked the end of the team’s 20th anniversary season. All year long, the Blowfish celebrated its history and honored key figures of old and new. 

Lexington County clinched its spot in the postseason after two wins last week against the Martinsville Mustangs and High Point-Thomasville HiToms. 

The Blowfish earned the No. 2 overall seed in the CPL’s West Division and earned the right to host the third seed out of Boone. 

Boone took control of the game fast and never looked back. The Bigfoots did most of their damage in the second inning when they popped off for five runs. 

Scott Hardy started on the mound for the Blowfish and held Boone scoreless in the first inning. The Bigfoots scored all five of their second-inning runs before Hardy could register an out, and he was pulled and replaced with Kevin Samonsky.

Samonsky pitched for three innings and allowed one hit and no runs. If only the Blowfish’s offense found success during that stretch, the team could’ve pulled itself back into the game. 

Instead, Lexington County scored just one run, cutting the deficit to four. Chandler Mims crossed home plate in the third inning after a wild throw from the Bigfoots’ pitcher.

Each team scored twice in the fifth inning. 

Chase Jarnagin subbed on for Samonsky to start the inning and immediately gave up a single and two walks in his first four batters faced to load the bases.

Boone’s Myles Holmes scored the team’s sixth run off an RBI single from Samuel Weinstein. Then, during the next at-bat, Dillon Moquin hit an RBI single to score Payton Basler.

Jarnagin eventually escaped the inning, allowing no more runs, and was pulled at the start of the sixth. 

Before that, Lexington County scored two of its own runs to keep the deficit at four.

Andrew Ortiz earned two RBIs after hitting a single that brought home Matthew Rollison and Thomas Powell.

The offense slowed down for both teams in the sixth through eighth innings. Neither team registered a run and there were only two hits in that span. 

Both teams went three-up-three-down in the sixth and eighth innings. Each side had at least one man reach base in the seventh, but nobody made it past second base. 

Lexington County went into the ninth inning with its season on the line, needing four runs to tie the game. 

The team’s defense did what it needed, forcing three outs against the first three batters faced. The offense tried, but was only able to muster one run off a solo shot home run from Matthew Rollison.

Powell hit a single as the next Blowfish player to step up to the plate, but the two batters after him were forced out, ending the game and Lexington County’s season. 

While the team fell short in the end, it was a memorable 20th anniversary season, with many high points. The team wrapped league play with a 27-18 record and won the season series against its biggest rivals in Macon and Florence. 

The team will now transition into the offseason as its players return to their colleges and prepare for the upcoming NCAA season next spring. 

Like always, expect to see a few familiar faces back in a Blowfish uniform next season.