Bryan County baseball, thanks to Jenkins County, lives to play another day--although it is admittedly on life support.

The Redskins, fighting to keep a playoff appearance streak alive, entered Tuesday night’s game with Metter tied with Portal for fourth-place. Both started the night 6-4 in Region 3A-DII play, albeit the Panthers do hold the tie-breaker advantage thanks to having swept Bryan County earlier.

Metter took advantage of early Bryan County mistakes and held on down the stretch to post a 7-4 win at Redskins Field that seemingly snapped the Redskins’ playoff run at four straight seasons.

Jenkins County, however, kept that dream alive when it scored three runs in the top of the sixth to stun Portal, 10-8. It was only the War Eagles’ second win in region play. The two teams will play again on Friday while Bryan County will be at Metter.

Making the playoffs, of course, is a longshot for Bryan County which has had an up-and-down season that saw it drop a stunning 12-11 game at McIntosh County Academy last Friday. It came three days after the Redskins had posted a 16-3 win over the last-place Bucs.

It was McIntosh’s first win in region play and only its third in a season that has seen it go through a 15-game losing streak. In region play the Bucs have averaged scoring 4.5 runs per game while allowing 14.9.

Bryan County rebounded to post a 9-8 win over visiting Perry, Ohio, Monday thanks to two three-run home runs from Eli Koskela.

Any momentum from that game didn’t last long though as Metter struck for three runs in the first inning, two scoring on a throwing error, added two in the second and another in the third for a 6-0 lead.

It was too much for Bryan County to overcome against a good team which is fighting Emanuel County for the regular season title and a No. 1 seed in the playoffs. Metter (8-2) and ECI (9-1) played Wednesday and will meet again next week.

The Redskins finally got on the board in the bottom of the third when Gunner McClelland had a two-run double and reliever Ashton Martin came on to hold Metter in check.

“Our pitchers did an awesome job,” Coach Kyle Farmer said. “We gave them too many freebies (11) and left too many on base (10).

“You can’t do that against a good program like Metter,” Farmer said. “It’s going to cost you.

“We’re making too many mental mistakes. We’ve got to go back to ground zero…we’ve got to take care of the little things because they add up.”

And, that was the crux of the matter for the Redskins who gave ECI its only region loss.

Metter made the most of its opportunities while the Redskins could not take advantage of theirs. They left the bases loaded in the fifth and left two men on in the first, second and fourth innings.

Martin, who has been solid on the mound all season, meanwhile shut down the Tigers after coming on with two out in the third.

“Ashton kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win,” Farmer said. “He’s been doing that all year because he does things the right way. He goes about his work, he doesn’t take shortcuts.

“When you don’t take shortcuts, the game knows and it will reward you.”

The Redskins scored their final runs of the night in sixth when Braylin Deloach doubled with two-out and Gunner Ennis drove a 1-2 pitch over the leftfield fence. However, that was it as the next four batters all struck out looking.