BURTON DROPS GAME 1 TO FLATONIA; SET FOR GAME 2 ON FRIDAY

The 2A Regional Semi-Finals started on Thursday night with the Burton Panthers starting things off with their first game of a best of 3 series against the Flatonia Bulldogs that took place in Bastrop High School.

The Burton Panthers faced one of the strongest pitchers in the playoffs in LHP Titan Targac of Flatonia and did a great job making him uncomfortable. After starting the game with 3 straight innings that saw the Panthers go 3 up-3 down which led to a 3-run deficit, the Panther were able to get the bats going in the 4^th with 2 hits by Ryder Biggs and Ruben Rodriguez and 2 errors forced by Tyler Witt and Eli Jaeger that led to 3 runs of their own to fight back and tie things up.

However, Flatonia was able to make up for their errors in the 4^th by leading off the 5^th with a walk, an RBI Triple followed by an RBI single and error that led to another score, giving Flatonia another 3-run lead.

But the Burton Panthers were not going down without a fight and after LHP Targac of Flatonia was pulled due to reaching his pitch count limit in the 7^th, the Panthers were able to fight back and score another run by Brady Griffin after a Logan Tosta single on a full count. Then with 2 outs and a full count at the plate representing the winning run, the Panthers had runners on the corners with an opportunity to close the deficit. With contact being made on a chopper to the shortstop position, the game was ended on a close throw out at 1^st, the result was a final score of 6-4 and a game 1 victory for the Flatonia Bulldogs in a nail biter.

A must win Game 2 for the Burton Panthers will take place Friday with the first pitch at 6:30pm and the KWHI pregame starting at 6:00pm in Bastrop.

Pitching

RHP Eli Jaeger: 7IP / 6Ks / 2BBs

Top Hitters

Ruben Rodriguez: 1-2 / 1B / RBI / R / BB

Ryder Biggs: 1-4 / 1B / RBI / R

Logan Tosta: 1-4 / 1B / RBI