Phoenix will be 2nd seed in the 7-4A
Cedartown is the Region 7-4A baseball champion.
The Bulldogs, thanks to not one, but two bottom-of-the-seventh inning rallies Wednesday night in front of the home folks, swept a doubleheader from Sonoraville by the same score to win the league title while the Phoenix finished second in the regular season finale for the two schools.
In the first game Wednesday, the Phoenix took a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the seventh, but the Bulldogs rallied for four runs to win, 6-5 and in the nightcap, the visitors held serve at 5-4 and needed just three outs to finish it off, but Cedartown scored twice in its final at-bat for it second walk-off win in just a few hours.
That means Cedartown is the 7-4A winner with a 14-1 record and will have the top seed heading into Monday’s GHSA 4A state playoffs while Sonoraville finishes second with an 11-4 mark and both teams will start out with a best-of-three series at home on Monday.
The Phoenix will face East Forsyth, the third seed out of Region 8-5A, in the first round and the Broncos went 12-6 in their league and stand 17-11 on the year.
For Sonoraville, the two losses Wednesday night were the first time this year they have lost consecutive Region games. They entered the night needing to win both games to take the Region crown, but the Bulldogs played much better at home than they did in losing Game One, 6-0, Monday night in Gordon County.
In the first contest Wednesday, Sonoraville got the bats going in the second inning with a pair of runs for a 2-0 lead.
Cedartown would scored its first runs of the entire series in the bottom of the third with two of its own to tie the game.
It would stay that way until the top of the fifth when the Phoenix pushed three runs across the plate for a 5-2 lead.
However, Cedartown found the lateinning magic they needed when, after scoring just two runs against Sonoraville in the first 13 innings of the series, the Bulldogs tallied four runs in the bottom of the seventh to get the win that secured their Region championship.
The second game was a real taffy pull with nothing decided until the Bulldogs batted for the last time in the regular season.
Feeling the momentum from their Game Two win, the Bulldogs jumped right out to a quick lead with three runs
BASEBALL,
Sonoraville freshman Eli Balliew touches home plate Monday night in the team’s 6-0 win over Cedartown in the first of their three-game Region 7-4A series at The Furnace.
in the bottom of the first.
But Sonoraville came back with three of its own in the top of the third to tie it.
The hosts got one run in the lower half of that frame to retake the lead at 4-3, but the Phoenix kept fighting and scored one time in the fourth to tie it and then took its first lead of the game in the fifth with a single run to go in front 5-4.
With the victories, Cedartown improves to 20-7 on the season and the Bulldogs begin the 4A state playoffs Monday back at home against North Hall, the fourth place team in the 8-4A.
Heritage finished as the third place team in Region 7-4A with an 8-7 record and Central, with a hot finish, closes in fourth place at 7-8.
Northwest Whitfield was fifth at 4-11 overall and Southeast Whitfield County came in sixth at 1-14.
Going into this week Heritage had just a one-game lead over Northwest Whitfield in the standings, but swept their three-game series with a win over the Bruins on Monday and a doubleheader victory on Tuesday to come in third.
Heritage will take on Cherokee Bluff in the first-round of the playoffs Monday and the Bluff has a 25-5 record this year.
Central began the 7-4A schedule with eight losses in its first nine games, but they closed with six straight wins following sweeps of the Whitfield County schools in the last two weeks to lock down that fourth playoff berth and the Lions will face 8-4A champion North Oconee in the first round Monday.
Sonoraville will take a 19-8 record into Monday’s firstround playoff matchup.