By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

FPD knew it couldn’t let any opportunities slip away against Tattnall, and it couldn’t give the Trojans any opportunities.

The Vikings did a little of both early in the first game of their GHSA Class A private baseball semifinal doubleheader Thursday, but they were still within striking distance past the midway point.

But Tattnall pushed six runs across in the sixth inning and then answered FPD’s four-run sixth with four in the bottom half en route to a 13-4 win in the opener.

The momentum carried over in a 10-0 six-inning series-clinching win in the nightcap.

“They came out swinging,” FPD head coach Denny Bryant said of the 32-4 Trojans. “They didn’t miss many pitches, and we couldn’t catch up to ‘em.”

The Trojans advance to the state championship series, starting with a doubleheader at 5 p.m. at Mercer’s OrthoGeorgia Park. Tattnall faces Prince Avenue Christian, which beat Holy Innocents’ 8-9, 3-2, and 4-1 on the road in the other semifinal.

The series was delayed two days by rain, and the sun made a lengthy appearance. Tattnall was warmer than FPD.

“I think we lacked a little bit of focus when we got up big in the first game,” Tattnall head coach Joey Hiller said. “I think we did a much better job of maintaining our focus when we did start getting up big in the second game.”

Tattnall led 3-0 after four innings.

“We had opportunities early on,” Bryant said. “(Tattnall’s) first run was unearned, we had a play we should have made. We had a chance to come back in the second inning and execute a bunt and move a runner over and we just couldn’t get it done.

“Tie the game up 1-1, or possibly go up 1-0, could be a different ballgame.”

But it wasn’t, and Tattnall basically put it away with four runs in the fifth. Then the Vikings scored four in the top of the sixth on Dalton Cox’s grand slam to get back in it.

“We were not happy with that, and our guys knew it,” Hiller said. “Give credit to (FPD) for taking a good swing and hitting the ball out of the park.”

The Trojans knocked them right back out with four in the bottom half, three coming on Trey Ham’s homer.

That kind of thing can linger.

“Trey Ham answered the call,” Hiller said. “They had worked so yard and go four runs and we got three of ‘em back on one swing. I’ve been on the other end of that, when you work your tail off to get two or three runs, and then all of a sudden, a team scratches back and erases what you worked so hard for.”

The game was a nice pitchers battle between FPD’s Noah Takac and Tattnall’s Luke Laskey until that big fifth. Laskey and Dawson Brown had two-run doubles and Logan Simmons a two-run single.

Brown was among the six two-hit Trojans, with five RBI, one more than Ham. Gorman, Logan Fink, Laskey and Miles Morris also having two-hit games.

Laskey gave up only three hits, two to Cox, with six strikeouts and four walks.

In the nightcap, Tattnall got a two-out run in the first on a Fink single and Austin Marchman double, added one in the second on a walk to Ham, sacrifice, and RBI single by B.J. Spears to center.

Then Brooks Gorman followed Logan Simmons’ leadoff single in the third with a towering homer to right-center, ending the day for starter Tyler Mimbs.

The Vikings went through three pitchers in the opener, and Garrett West came in after Mimbs and finished the third unscathed, but Tattnall got two in the fourth on Simmons’ double to deep left for a 6-0 lead.

The Vikings broke up Gorman’s no-hitter with a single by Ryan Jones to lead off the fifth, but then he was erased on a double play.

An infield single, passed ball, and wild pitch preceded Gorman’s two-run single in the top of the sixth as the the Trojans approached mercy-rule territory, which they reached soon after on Laskey’s deep-to-left two-run double.

The Vikings got their second hit off Gorman in the top of the seventh, but that, too, was followed by a double play.

“He usually strikes out more, but golly, he got groundballs to shortstop,” Hiller said of Gorman, who fanned two and walked one. “I don’t know how many shortstop) Logan (Simmons) fielded, but it was a lot.”

Simmons was part of one of Tattnall’s two double plays and turned five grounders into outs. Tattnall pitching has kept 10 straight opponents to four runs or less, with four shutouts in that span.

“We did a really good job of backing (Gorman) up,” Hiller said. “He threw strikes and trusted his defense. I t was a good plan.

“When we play error-free ball and throw strikes an dmake defensive plays, we’re a pretty dang good team.”