Bryan County baseball coach Justin Covington said one of his team’s goals this season was to host a GHSA Class A state playoff series.
That would not only mark another step forward for the program—the Redskins reached the second round last year as a road team—but give the school an opportunity to showcase its new baseball field. Playoff berths, however, are earned, not awarded based on facilities. To host a team must finish first or second in the region.
If the Redskins are going to host they have to dig deep starting this week with a three-game series against defending state champion Metter which again is the dominant team in Region 3A-D1.
The two split a doubleheader Tuesday evening at Metter. The Tigers won the opener, 5-4, and the Redskins bounced back to claim the nightcap, 5-2. The teams will wrap up the series with a single game at 6 p.m. Thursday at Bryan County. In the first game Bryan County spotted the Tigers a 3-1 lead but tied it 4-4 in the sixth on AJ Thomas’ two out single. Metter won it when it scored with one away in the bottom of the seventh against Tanner Ennis who had relieved starter Konnor Leggett after he had reached the 100 pitch count limit.
In the nightcap Ennis, who was 4-4 at the plate, pitched 2.1 innings of relief and got the win when the Redskins got three runs in the seventh. Thomas drew a base-loaded walk and two more runs scored on an error.
Bryan County (13-10, 5-3) opened region play on a high note by sweeping Claxton but put themselves behind the eight-ball last week when they dropped two of three games to Screven County (11-12, 5-4).
Bryan County beat the Gamecocks in the opener, 5-1, but then came a galling 4-3 defeat in the second game followed by a 10-9 loss in the finale. The Redskins had gone ahead 9-8 in the top of the eighth only to lose on a two-run error.
In the first game Leggett threw a strong six innings and got support from Cooper Ennis and Hunter Gibson who drove in two runs each. Gibson, Justin Beck and Tanner Ennis had two hits each.
Screven struck quickly in the second game as it tagged starter Kris Martin for three runs in the first. The Redskins got two in the first and each team scored a run in the third but his team’s overall play puzzled Covington.
“I don’t know what was going on,” said Covington of the second game effort. “One of the guys on the coaching staff said we were playing like we had a 12-0 lead and we were losing 4-3.
“We were playing, I think, nonchalant and that’s on me as a coach.”
The Redskins had eight hits, two each by Tanner Ennis and Aidan Martin, but could not come up with a needed hit in clutch situations as they left 10 runners
on base. A quirk in the schedule did not help the Redskins, either. The sweep of Claxton gave them a six-game winning streak and then came a week without a game which put them in the position of having to regain their momentum.
“It was bad timing,” Covington said of the break. “It hurt. I thought we had a good practice plan. We scrimmaged and tried to make it as game like as possible but it’s not the same.”
Covington came back with Martin in the third game but Screven again pounced, this time getting five runs in the first. The Redskins plugged away and finally tied it, 8-8, in the sixth on Beck’s sacrifice fly and Sean Kelly Hill’s RBI single.
With Tanner Ennis on the mound—he came on at the start of the third—the Redskins looked as if they were going to pull one out of the hat when they manufactured a run in the eighth.
Thomas led off with a walk and pinch-runner Cay’ron Rawls stole second, took third on a passed ball and scored on Hill’s grounder to third.
In the bottom of the inning with one out Gibson relieved Ennis with runners on first and second. Then came a wild pitch and an infield error that sent the Gamecocks home a winner.