Buford weathers season-ending injury to MLB Draft prospect Dylan Lesko, but the challenges don't end there

Defending 6A champ Houston County is up next for the Wolves, who got over one big hump by advancing past the second round.

Photos by Jamie Spaar

BUFORD, Ga. — Winning a state championship is never easy for any high school baseball team, even under the best of circumstances.

It becomes even more difficult when a team has some baggage to carry around.

Buford, which finished the season ranked No. 6 in SBLive's Top 25, will have some of that baggage to tote, in the literal and figurative sense, when they next take the field for their Class 6A state quarterfinal series next week.

The literal baggage will be stowed on buses when the Wolves (26-7) travel down Interstate 75 to take on defending 6A champ Houston County (27-4, No. 3 in the SBLive Top 25) in a doubleheader Monday in Warner Robins.

It's the figurative type that Buford will try to unload next week, a process that started with its second-round 7-3, 14-0 sweep of Glynn Academy on Tuesday at Gerald McQuaig Field.

The most obvious piece of luggage for the Wolves is one filled with its wealth of talent and its own success over the past two seasons.

Buford entered the 2021 season with a loaded roster featuring a consensus top 10 prospect in this year's Major League Baseball Draft, Vanderbilt signee Dylan Lesko.

Three of his classmates also committed to Power Five programs (Georgia Tech signees Riley Stanford, Brant Baughcum and Jackson Gaspard), and three other seniors are now at Power Five programs (Nathan Smith at Tennessee, Treyton Rank at Florida State and Jax Brockett at Nebraska).

But despite winning their first 32 games and looking unbeatable, the Wolves were shocked in the second round of last year's playoffs by Pope.

Tuesday's sweep unpacked that bag and gave the remaining members of that team more than a little redemption.

“It was a great feeling,” said Stanford, the winning pitcher of Game 2 Tuesday and went a combined 2-for-4 with three walks at the plate. “I mean, we knew what we had the capability of doing. We just had to execute on it.”

Of course, there are still a couple of other issues related to each other that Buford continues to try to work through, even after two playoff series wins.

With so many players from last year's stacked squad returning, expectations for the Wolves were even higher heading into the 2022 campaign, and they were living up to them by winning their first 20 games this spring.

But a brutal portion of the schedule resulted in losses in seven of Buford's final nine games to end the regular season.

Injury bug

Compounding the uptick in the competition level in that stretch were injuries to several key players.

The most devastating was Lesko, who suffered a season-ending elbow injury while pitching at the National High School Invitational during spring break, and underwent successful Tommy John surgery last week.

Losing such a dominant player like the 6-foot-3, 195-pound right-hander — last year's Gatorade National Player of the Year — is bad enough from an on-the-field standpoint.

But as Buford coach Stuart Chester points out, it also could easily have had a devastating emotional effect on the team.

“Losing someone like Dylan — people don't realize he's (also) one of our best defensive players (at shortstop), one of our best bats,” said Chester, a 31-year coaching veteran who won six state championships at Cartersville before moving over to Buford after the 2017 season. “So you lose three people right there, really. Then on the mound, you actually lose two arms because in the first game (of a playoff series), he usually takes care of business. So you don't have to burn another arm.”

Compounding the loss of Lesko were injuries to the other two members of the Wolves' starting rotation — Stanford and Gaspard — over the ensuing weeks.

“We're beat up and banged up,” Chester said. “Jackson, up until (the first-round series) last week, hadn't thrown in 16 days. He had biceps tendinitis. (Stanford has) got a bad ankle, and he turned it in warm-ups (before Tuesday's Game 2 against Glynn Academy). We didn't even know if we were going to bring him out and start him.

“We're just banged up. Brant's hurt a little bit, (too). Jackson's sore. So for us to come out and and be efficient (in Tuesday's doubleheader) — that's what we talk about, especially with our arms on the mound. Be efficient and make plays (in the field) when we can. Don't give (opponents) four outs. Cut down the number of pitches. And at the plate, produce. I was frustrated in the first game because we left so many (runners) on base. But (the kids) did a good job. It's a great group of young men.”

Gaspard battled through six innings, scattering eight hits and three earned runs with three strikeouts to pick up the win in Tuesday's opener with help from a couple of defensive gems by outfielders Stan Zagrodnik and Parker Walsh.

“I felt great,” said Gaspard, who improved to 7-0 on the season, and who has never lost a decision in three years in the Buford rotation. “But we're playing good teams in the (state) playoffs, and the high school playoffs in Georgia are tough.

“Baseball is a team game. We had outfielders make great plays and infielders make great plays and got me out of some binds. We work all week to make ourselves better at the plate and in the field, and it shows in the games.”

Meanwhile, Stanford (7-1 on the season) didn't seem bothered by his ankle in the nightcap, giving up just three hits and striking out eight in six shutout innings.

And the Wolves also got a scoreless inning out of the bullpen from sophomore Nate Taylor to close out each game.

Marquee matchup

Inspired performances like that will be critical in next week's state quarterfinal matchup with Houston County against a team just as stacked as Buford.

The Bears feature senior outfielder Gage Harrelson — a Texas Tech signee and highly ranked prospect for the 2022 MLB Draft — and a pair of junior Division I prospects in left-handed pitcher/first baseman Andrew Dunford and Georgia Tech-committed third baseman/outfielder Drew Burress.

“Just my experience over the last 31 years, it just seems like that third round is the round that you get your big battle,” Chester said. “I guess Monday will be that. Houston is a very good baseball team (with) a lot of talent. And of course, that's a hard place to play.”

As daunting a task as Buford faces, Stanford and his teammates are embracing the challenge.

“It's going to be tough,” Stanford said. “They have a great program over there, and they have a great bunch of players. But I believe we have what it takes to knock them off.”