Flomaton's road to playoffs begins today at Bayside as area play begins; hosts Bayside Friday
Tatum delivers for the Hurricanes
Flomaton defeats Miller at Hurricane Park
In terms of post season play, Flomaton High School's 'new season' opens Thursday at Bayside to open area play. Flomaton and Bayside will play at 4 p.m. today and Bayside will come to Flomaton for a 4 p.m. game Friday. A third game will be played Friday at 6 p.m. and will be used as the tiebreaker if the teams split the first two games.
Flomaton, Bayside and St. Michael's make up the area with the top two advancing to the state playoffs. Flomaton will travel to St. Michael's on April 11 for a 4 p.m. game and St. Michael's will come to Flomaton April 12 for 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. games.
Winning the series against Bayside this week will guarantee Flomaton a spot in the playoffs. A loss will force the Canes to win the series against St. Michael's.
Flomaton Coach Wes Sessions said he likes the position his 5-4 Hurricanes are in heading into area play, especially coming off a 4-3 win at home last Friday against T.R. Miller. T.R. Miller defeated Flomaton 11-0 the day before in Brewton.
"The attitude and hustle was a lot better Friday," Sessions said. "We got into it mentally and got into a good position heading into area play."
Sessions said the Hurricanes need to clean up the defense in order to make a run.
"We're making way too many errors," Sessions said.
After building a 3-0 lead on Miller, Flomaton errors allowed the Tigers to score three unearned runs to tie the game.
Miller 11, FHS 0
T.R. Miller raced to an 11-0 lead after three innings last Thursday in Brewton and went on to claim the 11-0 win over Flomaton in a game that was called after five innings.
Miller scored three runs in the bottom of the first. Hunter Johnson singled and Kyle Blevins walked. With two outs Blake Jernigan delivered a two-RBI double and later scored on Tyler Merritt's RBI single.
T.R. Miller scored five runs in the second on four hits and three in the third to end the scoring.
Flomaton's biggest threat came in the top of the first when the Hurricanes loaded the bases but were unable to score.
T.R. Miller scored its 11 runs on eight hits and committed one error. Flomaton had two hits and two errors.
Hunter Johnson and Tyler Merritt had two hits each for Miller. Kyle Blevins, Blake Jernigan, Jon Jeter and Landon Sims also had hits for Miller. Merritt was two-for-two with four RBI.
Sam Smith and Joseph O'Bannon had Flomaton's two hits.
Jackson Steele took the loss for Flomaton allowing eight runs (seven earned) on eight hits in one and two-thirds of an inning.
Tyler Merritt got the win for Miller allowing no runs on two hits, going the distance in the five-inning game.
FHS 4, Miller 3.
Flomaton built a 3-0 lead Friday over T.R. Miller only to see the Tigers tie the game before the Hurricanes took the 4-3 victory in the bottom of the eighth when Alex Cash scored on a fielder's choice hit by Sam Smith.
Flomaton scored three runs in the bottom of the third with Cash, Smith and Jackson Steele all crossing the plate. Cash led off the inning with a single and Smith walked. Steele delivered a two-RBI single and then scored on Cruz Odom's RBI double.
Miller closed the gap to 3-1 in the top of the fourth when Tyler Merritt reached on an error and later scored on Blake Jernigan's RBI single.
In the top of the fifth, Hunter Johnson reached on an error and Kyle Blevins reached on a fielder's choice. Tyler Merritt doubled to score Johnson and Blevins scored on a RBI single by Jernigan.
Flomaton won the game with the walk-off in the bottom of the eighth.
T.R. Miller scored its three runs on seven hits and committed one error. Flomaton had four runs on six hits and committed four errors.
Cash led the Flomaton offense with two hits and Steele, Odom, Turner and Tatum each had one hit. Merritt and Jernigan led Miller with two hits each and Johnson, Britain and Martin each had one hit.
Cash picked up the win in relief of Tatum allowing no runs on no hits. Tatum allowed three runs (all unearned) on seven hits in seven innings of work.
Sims took the loss for Miller, allowing one run on two hits. Jernigan started and allowed three earned runs on four hits.
