STANFORD — How long does a high school baseball game last?
On average, a seven-inning high school game lasts for 1 hour, 30 minutes to 2 hours. Lincoln County’s game with 45th District rival Garrard County was no average ballgame. 
The final out on the district game came 26 hours and 25 minutes after the opening pitch after thunderstorms forced a weather delay. The host Bat Patriots were up 1-0 in the middle of the third inning Tuesday when play was suspended. Play resumed Wednesday evening and Lincoln tacked on another run to claim its first district win, a 2-0 shutout.
“It took a while, but we finished well,” Lincoln coach Tee Ellis said. “Our defense was spectacular. (Noah) Horton (starting pitcher) did a great job yesterday. Then Jared came in today and did what he was supposed to do. He threw a lot of strikes and when they hit it our defense made plays behind him.”
Long came up big offensively in part one of the two-day game, scoring the run Lincoln needed for the win on Tuesday. Long, who made it to third base on a single, a stolen base and a wild pitch, came home on an RBI-ground out by Parker Monhollen.
Luke Smith sealed the win on day two, slugging out a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth Wednesday.
“We did get some timely hitting,” said Ellis. “Parker’s RBI-ground out yesterday with one out gave us the lead. We had Jared on third and he hit a ground ball to the shortstop who was playing back and he was able to score Jared. And then tonight Luke Smith hit a big home run for us.”
While happy with those timely hits, Ellis was not pleased with Lincoln’s offense overall.
“We had too many strikeouts,” he said. “Offensively, we’ve got to put the ball in play. One inning we had the bases loaded with one out and didn’t put the ball in play and nothing came out of it. When we get runners on, we need to take advantage and score or at least put it in play. Even if they make a play on it, we need to make them make a play. When we strike out they don’t have to do much.”
The loaded bases inning Ellis referred to came in the bottom of the fourth Wednesday. 
Cooper Brown was hit by a pitch to open the inning then, between strikeouts on Horton and Monhollen, Long and Josh Caudill both reached on a walk to load the bases. However, Garrard pitcher Drew Delili got out of the jam by striking out Sawyer Carrier.
Lincoln gave up only two hits over the two days, with Brandon Pingleton getting both. He had a hit to right field off Horton Tuesday and singled to left off Long on Wednesday.
For Ellis and the Bat Patriots, who dropped their district opener 8-5 at Danville, the Garrard win was a welcomed victory.
“This is a tough district,” he said. “Nobody wants to be the four-seed in our district so winning tonight makes us 1-1 and can help us out in getting a higher seed.”
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at Lincoln Co.

Garrard 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0
Lincoln 0 1 0 0 1 0 x- 2