Bryan County baseball coach Kyle Farmer likes to talk about his team playing with "grit and toughness". It’s all part of the culture he’s trying to establish in his second year with the Redskins.

That grit and toughness was on full display Tuesday night when Bryan County rallied from four runs down to force extra innings and then get a rare 11-10 win over Emanuel County Institute at Redskins Field.

Bryan County scored the winning run with no one out in the bottom of the ninth when Eli Koskela capped a big night by scoring from second on a throwing error by the ECI third baseman.

Koskela was the winning pitcher in relief and had a three-hit night with two RBI and four runs scored. His third hit of the game was a single leading off the ninth. After he advanced to second on a wild pitch Jordan Fabin was intentionally walked to set the stage for what proved to be the game winner.

Gunner Ennis then hit what was a routine grounder to third and in attempting to pull off what would have been a routine third-to second-to first double play the throw to second was wild and high.

Koskela never broke stride and it was game over.

The Bulldogs are annually one of the top teams in the region as evidenced by their run to the Class A-DII Final Four last year. While it was only the second region game of the year for both teams it showed the Redskins (5-4, 2-0) potentially are not going to be an easy out in region play.

The two teams will play one another again on Friday at ECI with Bryan County taking on Johnson in a non-region game on Thursday.

“It's still early,” said Farmer, cautioning against getting too excited over beating the Bulldogs. “We have a lot of region games in front of us. We have to go to Twin Cities on Friday.

“That’s (ECI) a heckuva ball club but it does feel good to get one and know we can play with those guys over there. For our guys to see they can compete with them is big.”

While the game had its twists and turns as can be expected in such a high scoring game the Redskins pitching, Farmer said, was much better than the 10 runs allowed would indicate.

Sophomore Braylin Deloach started and got off to a great start as he pitched two scoreless innings before running into trouble in the third when ECI sent 13 men to the plate and scored seven runs.

That brought on Harrison Adams who got out of a bases-loaded jam and then held ECI at bay until the seventh when the Bulldogs seemingly put the game out of reach with a three-run outburst. Ashton Martin came in with one away and got the final two outs to set the stage for an improbable comeback.

“Adams did a great job,” Farmer said. “He’s done that all year. He comes in and throws strikes. He’s a sidearm guy, he’s different.

“I thought Deloach did good,” Farmer said. “He started and did fine and then had that one inning that things didn’t go our way. A couple of errors here and there led to their big inning.

“I thought our staff did a heckuva job of keeping them off the board other than the two innings. My guys competed their butts off for nine innings. There wasn’t one head down when they took that 7-3 lead in the third inning. I think these guys are starting to believe in themselves.”

Bryan County, thanks to Adams closing the door, closed to within one run with three in the fifth, all with two out. Koskela singled in a run and then Fabin, who had a three RBI night, delivered a two-run shot to left.

After ECI got its three runs in the seventh for a seemingly safe 10-6 lead the Redskins went to work.

Deloach and Ethan Williams led off the inning with singles and Koskela doubled in Deloach. Fabin plated Williams with a ground out to short, Koskela scored when ECI tried to get him at home on Ennis’ grounder to third which led to the kind of break which often means the difference between victory and defeat.

As Koskela slid across the plate on a bang-bang play the catcher couldn’t hold onto the ball and then he couldn’t find it. Ennis, who had an RBI triple in the first, alertly never stopped running until he reached third bringing Adams to the plate.

Adams then hit a high hopper which the second baseman fielded cleanly but did not have a chance to get Ennis who was breaking on the pitch. That tied it, capping an improbable comeback.