Lukas Buckner and the Farragut Admirals took on the Bearden Bulldogs in a TSSAA District 4-4A contest on John Heatherly Field on Thursday, April 7, 2022, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Farragut won 7-2. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY DAVE LINK
No telling the heights Lukas Buckner will reach the next two years with the Farragut baseball team, but the 2022 season will be hard to top.
There was no sophomore slump for Buckner, who started at second base as a freshman in 2021 and moved to shortstop this year.
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Buckner, the 5Star Preps Offensive Player of the Year, had the team-high batting average (.451) while hitting .405 in the postseason – including .500 in the Class 4A state tournament when Farragut went 4-0 and won the championship.
“It was pretty special,” said Buckner, son of Farragut head coach Matt Buckner. “A lot of people didn’t think we could do it from the beginning, how we started, but we just got hot at the right time and nobody could stop us at the end there.
“Everyone believed in the guy behind him and the guy in front of him. We just had really good team chemistry and I feel like that’s a big part of why we could have such a special season.”
Buckner, one of six sophomore starters in the lineup, played a huge role in the special season, finishing it with a 16-game hitting streak as the Admirals (30-11-1) won their last 12 games, 10 in the postseason.
The Central Florida commitment hit safely in 37 of the 40 games he played (in one hitless game he had one at-bat before leaving with an injury) and in 156 plate appearances struck out just 11 times.
He had nine doubles, three triples, two homers, 20 RBIs, and scored 37 runs.
“I didn’t expect him to do all that,” Matt Buckner said. “I will say he has always hit. No matter what level of baseball he’s played at, he’s always hit. He’s always been one of the better hitters on most teams that he plays on. He’s always put up pretty good numbers, always hit for a high average. But did I know he’d do that as a sophomore? No, I didn’t.
“He really improved a lot (before his sophomore season). He got faster and stronger and put in a lot of time working on that. It’s different. I’ve had really good players before but none of them have been my son. I’m proud of him. He’s put in the work, and he works hard on hitting and works hard on his game in general. He puts in a lot of time, and obviously, he had a great year.”
And it came against a demanding schedule, against top teams in the state and nation, starting during Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale when the Admirals opened 2-2 against four Florida teams.
Buckner also adjusted from batting eighth or ninth in the lineup as a freshman – he hit better than .360 – to hitting mostly leadoff and some in the order this year.
“We played a gauntlet of a schedule,” Matt Buckner said. “We played an extremely difficult schedule. We saw a ton of good arms. He never wavered, man. He stayed very consistent the whole year.”
ONE TOUGH SUMMER
Lukas’s summer baseball plans ended in late June when he suffered a tear in the Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) of his knee playing travel baseball.
It happened when he was sliding into home plate playing for Team eXposure during a prestigious 16-under national tournament at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C.
The injury is a Grade 2 tear and didn’t require surgery.
“He’s not very happy about it,” Matt Buckner said of missing summer ball, “but at the end of the day, we’re glad it’s not anything that’s going to hinder him down the road.”
Lukas said it’s the first summer he’s not been able to play baseball, but he’s still able to work on his upper body and arm strength.
“I can still lift with my upper body and hang out with some friends I never get to hang out with because I’m always gone,” he said. “It kind of sucks, but it’s all right. I’m just glad I didn’t have surgery or anything.”
LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD
Lukas said he never felt pressured to play baseball. He played youth football and basketball until he started travel baseball at 8 years old.
Then he was all baseball.
The Farragut Admirals took on Houston in the TSSAA Class 4A state championship on Mack Hawks Field on Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Farragut won 4-1. (Photo by Danny Parker)
“Completely by my choice,” he said. “(Matt Buckner) would have been OK if I didn’t want to play, or if I did. He would have been OK with whatever I wanted to do.”
Matt Buckner said baseball came naturally for Lukas, and the long hours spent around the Farragut players and program have paid dividends.
“I just think it’s different when you’re a coach’s kid,” Matt said. “I think it’s just part of your life. He’s been at the field since the bus used to drop him off at the field during elementary school, and he used to walk down from the middle school. He’s just been there, all the time.
“That’s all he’s ever been around. He’s been around the great players at Farragut for a long time. I guess he’s seen how they go about their business, and obviously he’s smart enough to pay attention to that, and that’s obviously probably helped him.”
Lukas has watched the previous stars at Farragut and noticed similarities in them.
“There’s a theme with all of them,” he said. “They all work harder than everyone else on the team. That’s why they were the best. That was a really big deal to me, that I always wanted to be one of the hardest workers, to be in a spot when I get to high school to try and help the team that I’ve been watching since I was like 8 years old.”
Lukas will continue grinding this summer and during offseason to get better.
“For sure the first thing I feel I need to do is get my knee right,” he said, “to get it back to 100 percent where it was before. And then after that, just get stronger and bigger and faster, just like last year, help my game.”