EDWARDSVILLE – Junior Sam Buckley will be a key member of the Civic Memorial baseball team this season.
The Civic Memorial baseball team opened their season Friday night (March 19) against Washington High School and lost 11-7, but they did move to a 6-1 lead after two innings. Junior Sam Buckley was on the mound in the third inning, and Washington had runners on first and third with one out. The Eagles caught a man stealing for the second out and Buckley picked up his first K to end the inning.
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It was a huge moment at that point in the game keeping his team up by five.
“It felt pretty good knowing we had a five-run lead,” Buckley said after the game regarding getting out of the jam. He mentioned it’s much easier to pitch when his team is leading.
Buckley is the Tom Lane State Farm Insurance Male Athlete of the Month for CM.
While it was a tough loss Saturday, Buckley believes in his team. When asked about what he’s looking forward to most this season he said his team’s athletic ability.
“We have the potential to go far," he said. "Today we showed it for the first couple of innings and then we let it get away from us.”
Buckley was already analyzing his performance in the postgame and looking ahead to future success.
“That’s on me as a pitcher letting up those runs and I’m going to do my best next practice to work on what I did wrong here and move forward," he said.
It takes a true leader to admit when they’ve done wrong, but Buckley also mentioned that he just wants to focus on what he did right and work on continuing to do that.
The Eagles will head to Breese Central on Tuesday, March 22 at 4:30 p.m. They’ll play their home opener the following afternoon against Mount Vernon also at 4:30 p.m.
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