From staff reports

The Callaway baseball team got all it could handle in its first-round series at Lovett in the Class AA state playoffs on Friday.

The Cavaliers lost the first game 9-0 and the second game 11-0, but the games were closer than the final scores indicated.

Callaway starting pitchers Tanner Thompson and Taylor Kenerley held Lovett to just a 4-0 lead into the fifth inning of both games.

Lovett opened the floodgates in the later innings, however, and easily advanced to the second round.

The Lions returned many of the same players who lost in the Class AA state finals last season, and Callaway head coach Dusty Hubbard said Lovett is poised to reach the championship game again.

“It was a tough day,” Hubbard said. “They had us out-manned.”

Kenerley, the lone senior pitcher on the Cavaliers’ young squad, managed to strike out six batters in five innings and allowed just two earned runs in Game 2.

Lovett hit three home runs in the sixth inning of that game to blow it wide open, however.

Hubbard knew going into this season that it would be a “rebuilding year,” and was proud that the young Cavaliers were able to experience a playoff berth for the future of the program.

Callaway loses just four seniors to graduation this season.

“I think we’re headed in the right direction,” Hubbard said. “We had the opportunity to play a lot of young kids, and they’ll only get better. Them getting this experience was a good thing.”