A day after beating Clarke County at home 18-3 Thursday, the T.R Miller Tiger baseball team needed just one win Friday in Grove Hill to claim the area championship and host a first round home playoff game Friday.
The win for the area championship never came as the No. 2 Tigers lost to Clarke County 8-7 to finish their regular season with a 17-7 record and an area record of 6-2.
The loss to Clarke County dropped T.R. Miller to the area runner-up slot as Bayside Academy finished as area champions over the Tigers with a 7-1 area record to T.R. Miller’s 6-2 record. (Even though T.R. Miller defeated Bayside twice, one loss was in the tie-breaker game to the Tigers while both of T.R. Miller’s losses—one to Bayside and one to Clarke County—came in the two area games).
T.R. Miller will now travel to Opp for the first round of the class 3A state playoffs Friday for a 5 and 7:30 p.m. doubleheader. A third and deciding game will be played if needed Saturday at 2 p.m. in Opp.
In the game Friday in Grove Hill, Clarke County led the Tigers of Brewton 2-0 after the first inning but saw T.R. Miller rally in the second inning with four runs of their own to take a 4-2 lead. Clarke County would plate two more runs in the bottom of the inning to tie the game heading to the third inning.
In the top of the third, T.R. Miller took a 5-4 lead and then added one in the fourth to hold a 6-4 lead.
Clarke County then plated one in the fifth to cut the lead to 6-5 heading into the sixth inning.
In the sixth, T.R. Miller scored one to take a 7-5 lead but the Bulldogs scored three in the bottom of the sixth to take an 8-7 lead and held T.R. Miller scoreless in the seventh to get the win by one and spoil T.R. Miller’s bid for the area championship.
In the bottom of the sixth with T.R. Miller up by two, Clarke County benefited from a leadoff walk, then got a fielder’s choice, two singles, a passed ball and a wild pitch to score three runs.
At the plate for the Tigers, Kevin Davis was 2-for-4 with one RBI and Ryan Hunt was 3-for-3 with one run scored. Darby Black swung a hot bat with a 2-for-3 day at the plate including one RBI, a homerun in the third inning, a double and scored one run.
On the mound, Conner Denton got the start while Kevin Davis took the loss in relief.
Denton went two innings and allowed four runs, three earned, four hits, one walk and struck out none.
Davis went five innings and allowed four runs, three earned, four hits, struck out 10, walked two and hits two.
The Tigers left seven runners on base in scoring position.