FAIRMONT — Bobby Baxley was both Lumberton’s starter and its closer Tuesday.

After pitching the first four innings of the game, Baxley returned to the mound when the Pirates’ game at Fairmont tightened up in the seventh, netting the final out of a 10-8 win to earn both a win and a save.

“That’s the first time that ever happened to me. I just came in there just trying to throw strikes,” Baxley said. “Coach was saying just hit my spots and everything and we’d have nothing to worry about.”

After Fairmont (2-2) scored two runs each in the fifth and sixth innings of the nonconference contest, the Golden Tornadoes scored three more in the ninth to pull to a 10-8 deficit with the bases loaded.

That’s when Baxley came back to the hill — and he only needed three pitches to clinch the win with a strikeout.

“He wanted it, he wanted the ball. When I said ‘do you want to come back in,’ he said ‘give me the ball,’ so that made my decision easy,” Lumberton coach Jeff McLamb said. “I know Bobby’s going to throw strikes, and in our conference games he’s going to be our sixth- and seventh-inning guy, because he pounds the zone, he wants the ball and he’s got very good intensity.”

“Usually when you come back in, it’s hard to get back on the mound and get focused, but he came back in and did what he had to do and struck us out on three pitches,” Fairmont coach Sandy Thorndyke said. “It looked to me like he had as much pop on his pitches as he did when he came out.”

Baxley had allowed one unearned run on three hits, with a walk and two strikeouts, over his four innings as the Pirates starter.

He had plenty of run support from the Pirates offense — including two RBIs of his own — starting with a six-run first. The Pirates had nobody on base with two outs before Samuel Beck reached on a ground ball error to keep the inning alive. The next batter, Jacob Scott, walked, before Baxley singled to score Beck and Scott.

“Every time I go up to bat I work middle back, so I got a pitch to drive and sat back and put it up the middle like I was supposed to,” Baxley said.

Garret Smith’s single plated Baxley and Payne Stone singled to score Smith. After Jaylon Oxendine walked, Jackson Davis doubled to score Stone and Oxendine, giving Lumberton a 6-0 lead before Baxley threw a pitch.

“We talk about that two-out lightning; we talk about don’t quit until you get three outs,” McLamb said. “It puts teams down when you score runs with two outs. That’s something we’ve been teaching: just battle up there when you get two, don’t lay down, and we call it two-out lightning, and it was striking tonight.”

The Pirates added single runs in the second, on an RBI infield single by Smith to score Samuel Beck, and the third, an unearned run on an RBI single by Hayden Hunt to plate Jackson Davis; the Pirates led 8-0 after three innings.

Fairmont got on the board in the bottom of the fourth, when Nate Jones reached on a walk and scored on an error. The Pirates responded with two more runs in the next half-inning, on a Hunter Beasley two-run single to score Oxendine and Davis for a 10-1 lead.

The Golden Tornadoes continued to battle back, scoring two runs in the bottom of the fifth on a two-RBI double by Malachi Gales to score Josiah Williams and Jones, and two more in the sixth when Williams scored on an error and a Ridge Walters RBI single plated Jones, making it a 10-5 game.

In the seventh, Gales scored on an error then two runs scored on a ground ball by NyNy Cromartie, with Quentin Hunt scoring from third initially then Will Bartley coming home after a throwing error. Walters walked to load the bases — putting the potential game-winning run on first base and the tying run at second — before McLamb brought Baxley back for the final out.

“We make that play (in the first inning), we get out of there with seven pitches, and then you don’t have all this big gap in scoring,” Thorndyke said. “But my guys battled back — I’m tickled to death (with that). I hope our little guys learn from it. I’m disappointed we lost, but I love how we battled back.”

Scott, Smith and Davis each had two hits for Lumberton, with Beck and Davis both scoring twice. Beasley, Baxley, Smith and Davis all had two RBIs.

Gales had three hits and two RBIs for the Golden Tornadoes and Cromartie had two runs; Jones scored three runs and Williams two.

Jones took the loss for Fairmont, with only one of his eight runs allowed being earned.

The win was the fifth straight to start the season for Lumberton, who resumes Sandhills Athletic Conference play Tuesday at home against Pinecrest.

“Intensity (is why we’re playing well),” Baxley said. “Being in the ballgame from start to finish, keeping balls in play, throwing good, starting off well and finishing.”

“We’re swinging the bats very well right now,” McLamb said. “I was telling them earlier, the one thing stopping us from being a really good team is finishing teams. I felt like we had an opportunity to come out and finish them off, and we didn’t and we let them back in the game, and that’s happened to us twice.”