AHSAA BASEBALL PLAYOFFS: Beauregard survives, forces Game 3

BEAUREGARD — The in-game speech by Beauregard head coach A.J. Kehoe was pretty simple: Just survive.

After Beauregard was mercy-ruled, 15-3, by Tallassee in the first game of Friday’s Class 5A second-round playoff doubleheader, the Hornets had just seen an eight-run lead evaporate in the second.

Momentum turned to disbelief. Then disbelief almost toppled into elimination. Enter Kehoe and his straightforward comments.

“I told them that everything that happened up to this point is irrelevant,” Kehoe said. “I told them it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what we do now. We have to survive.”

And Beauregard did. The Hornets rebounded from giving up nine unanswered runs to score the tying and winning runs in the top of the seventh, taking Game 2, 10-9, and forcing a thir dand deciding game at 1 p.m. today.

The winner of today’s Game 3, which will be held at Beauregard High, advances to the third-round of the playoffs next Friday against Briarwood Christian, who defeated Chelsea Friday.

The Hornets jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the third inning of the second game. Drew Brown led off the frame with a walk and Tyler Cofield moved him to third with a double to right-center field. Hayden Hillyer was then hit by a pitch to load the bases with no outs.

Starting pitcher Kyle Brown helped himself out with a bases-clearing double to left-center, giving the Hornets a 3-0 lead. The next batter, Justin Choron, followed with a two-run home run over the left-field wall for a 5-0 advantage.

The Hornets then tacked on three more runs in the top of the fourth when Cofield hit a three-run homer.

But Tallassee didn’t lie down. Seven runs later, the Tigers were right back in the ballgame.

Tallassee started its half of the fourth with three consecutive singles to load the bases. Then a walk to Hunter Mullins scored Brad Stone to start the rally.

The Tigers scored their next three runs on two errors and one wild pitch. Trey Cochran-Gill then drove in the fourth run with a single to center, while Stone plated Dylan Baker with a base knock to left.

The final run of the inning was scored on an error to put Tallassee back in the game. The Tigers tied the game in the fifth and took the lead, 9-8, in the sixth on Beauregard’s fourth error of the game.

Then Kehoe gathered his team before their final at-bat in the top of the seventh.

The Hornets responded with two runs and a 10-9 lead.

Hillyer started the inning by reaching first on a dropped third strike. A walk to Kyle Brown put runners on first and second. Tallassee’s Channing Ellis then came in to pitch, replacing Tigers’ reliever Jacob Gibson.

Choron greeted Ellis with a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners to second and third. Cody Weems was then intentionally walked to load the bases with one out.

Mike Long followed by walking on four pitches, which allowed the tying run to score. Then, Drew Brown reached on in infield hit to score Von Gibson, who was pinch running for Kyle Brown, giving the Hornets the go-ahead run.

Tallassee had a chance to tie the game in its final at-bat with a runner on second and two outs. But a baserunning mistake ended the Tigers’ threat, leaving them to play today for the right to advance.

“Mental mistakes will get you every time,” Tallassee head coach Adam Clayton said. “We battled back, which is something we’ve struggled with all year. It was good to see us do that.

“But you’ve also got to give it to Beauregard for the way they hung in there.”

Tallassee wasted little time capitalizing on the Hornets’ mental mistakes in Game 1. The Tigers scored five first-inning runs on four consecutive Beauregard errors. In fact, the only hit Tallassee recorded was a two-run home run by Ellis, which capped the frame.

And the Tigers kept coming, adding three runs in the second and seven runs in the fourth — highlighted by a two-run double by Cochran-Gill.

“Our first game was kind of like their second game,” Clayton said. “We jumped on them early in the first and they got up on us in the second and neither team could overcome that.”

Beauregard finished the day with 14 hits and nine errors. But Kehoe is looking toward the positive heading into today’s rubber match.

“Really, as poorly as we played all day, we were pretty tenacious,” Kehoe said. “We found a way to survive, and that’s what the playoffs are all about.”

mszvetitz@oanow.com | 737-2513

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