The ECI Bulldog baseball team will travel to Ocilla Thursday to play the Irwin Co. Indians in the first round of the class A state playoffs.
The Bulldogs and Indians played in front of a raucous crowd in Ocilla in 2018 in the second round of the playoffs with Irwin taking the first two games 7-2 and 4-3 to advance to the third round.
The Indians are the number two seed from region 2 with a 24-3 season record and 18-3 in region play.
The winner of the Irwin-ECI games will play the winner of the Wilcox-Baconton series.
The Bulldogs will enter the playoffs with a 13-10 season and 8-6 region record as the number three seed.
The Bulldogs will be looking to right the ship after being swept the last 4 games of the season against two seed Claxton and number one seed Metter.
During the last 2 games of the regular season against Metter last week, the Bulldogs were outscored 18-1 giving the Tigers too many extra outs committing 10 errors.
In baseball anything can happen in a three game series. In 2013 the Bulldogs entered the playoffs as the number one seed in power rankings with a 23-1 season and 10-0 region record. They faced the number 16 seed Lincoln Co. who just barely had a winning record at 14-13 and was the number 16 seed. Lincoln took the contentious three game series knocking the highly favored Bulldogs out of the playoffs.
In other region 3 playoff games against region 2 teams, Metter will host Lanier Co., Claxton will host Clinch Co. and McIntosh Co. will go to Folkston to take on region champion Charlton Co.
The first game of the double header Thursday in Ocilla will begin at 4:30 with second game 30 minutes after. The “if” needed third game is scheduled for 5:30 on Friday.
