AHSAA BASEBALL PLAYOFFS: Beauregard wins in 12 innings

On the 502nd pitch of the afternoon, four hours and 45 minutes after Beauregard and Tallassee first set out to decide their AHSAA Class 5A second round playoff series, the Hornets’ Trey Hammock buried an offspeed pitch in the dirt to get the Tigers’ Davis Knapp swinging.

Cody Weems slapped the tag on Knapp’s back, putting the finishing touch on an 18-15 Beauregard victory in 12 innings that moved it to the third round, the furthest the Hornets have ever gone.

Beauregard coach A.J. Kehoe could not say he was sad to see the game go.

“I couldn’t even tell you when it started,” Kehoe said.

Weems, who, along with Knapp, caught 26 innings over the two-day series, said he was ready to go again.

Just give him a day or two. Or three.

“I am hurting, horribly hurting,” he said.

“This is probably the tiredest I’ve been.”

Weems has only himself to blame for sending the game into extras.

The senior came up with the Hornets trailing 7-4, two runners on base and down to their last out. He popped a 1-0 pitch to deep right-center field.

He needed about 355 feet to tie the game. He got about 355.5.

“When I hit it, I was like, ‘Ah, pop fly,’ but I saw (the centerfielder) was going to get burned,” Weems said. “When it was out it was just ... the best feeling in the world.”

The No. 7 Hornets (31-9) and the Tigers (17-19) went back and forth all game. Tallassee went up 6-1 in the fourth, Beauregard scored five runs in the fifth. Tallasse went back up 10-6 in their half of the fifth, Weems tied the game with his shot in the seventh. Beauregard put a combined five runs on the board in the ninth, 10th and 11th innings, Tallassee matched them every time.

“You hate for either team to have to lose,” Tallassee coach Adam Clayton said. “That’s probably one of the better high school baseball games that’s ever been played in this state, I would think.”

But what else could you expect from the area rivals? After Tallassee blew out Beauregard in Game 1 yesterday, the Hornets took an 8-0 lead in Game 2 only to lose it and come back and win in the top of the seventh.

The Hornets delivered the final blow in the top of the 12th, when Drew Brown grounded a single past a drawn-in infield to score Justin Choron.

Beauregard tacked on two more runs on a fielders’ choice by Cory Thompson and a single by Tyler Cofield. Hammock got the Tigers in order in the bottom — only the third time that happened all day — to secure a trip to No. 5 Briarwood Christian (25-5) next week.

“You look at all we’ve been through in this three-game series, and just the tenacity we’ve showed,” Kehoe said. “And daggum, man, we just battled, and battled. We just found a way to get it done. Never gave up.”

The two teams combined to send 123 batters to the plate. Those batters scored 33 runs on 34 hits, and the two teams’ fielders combined for 12 errors.

Weems was 4-for-6 with two doubles, the home run and four RBI for the Hornets. Cofield was 2-for-8 with two RBI, Hayden Hillyer was 2-for-6 with four runs and a home run, Kyle Brown was 3-for-6 with three runs and two RBI, Choron was 2-for-8 with three runs, and Brown was 2-for-4. Hammock got the win, giving up a run on a hit over two innings and striking out three.

Trey Cochran-Gill was 4-for-6 with four runs, five RBI and a three-run home run that pushed the Tigers’ lead to 10-6 in the fifth. Knapp was 3-for-8 with two RBI, Brad Stone was 2-for-7 with three RBI, Patrick Mullins was 4-for-7 with two RBI, Channing Ellis was 2-for-6, and John Woodall scored twice.

dmorrison@oanow.com | 737-2568

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