The Bainbridge baseball team was unable to complete its seventh inning comeback against Thomas County Central on Tuesday, Feb. 28, losing 5-4.

The Bearcats struggled early and often from the plate, but good defense by the Bearcats kept the score tied at zero through three innings. At the top of the fourth, Bearcat pitcher Will Kelley walked the first batter to put a man on first. Kelley then struck out the next batter.

With a man on first, the next TCC batter stepped up to the plate, and drilled one over the left field fence to score two and break the scoreless game. Kelley then struck out the next batter, and ended the inning on a ground out at first.

The game went back to a defensive deadlock in the fifth inning, with both teams struggling from the plate in the inning. The top of the sixth rolled around with TCC up 2-0.

A quick double, then a single put a runner in scoring position for TCC and a runner on first. Kelley then gave up another double that scored two to put Bainbridge down 4-0. TCC scored one more run in the seventh to go up 5-0.

Something changed for Bainbridge going into the bottom of the seventh. Down 5-0, the Bearcats found its bat. Three quick singles out of the first four batters up put Noah Bryant, Will Kelley and Griffin Long all on to load the bases with only one out on the board.

Connor Strickland stepped up to the plate and cracked another single to the gap in right field, scoring Bryant and advancing the other runners. The floodgates were opened at that point, and Caleb Boutwell singled out to right field as well, scoring Kelley and advancing the runners yet again.

The score after six Bearcat at bats in the inning was 5-2 with only one out and bases loaded yet again. Clark Wiggins stepped up to the plate and grounded into a  fielder’s choice which scored Boutwell, who was pinch running for Long. The fielder got Boutwell out advancing to second. TCC now only led by two with two outs.

Nick Barber then singled out to left field, scoring Strickland and advancing Wiggins to second. TCC was now barely hanging on 5-4 with two outs and runners on second and first. Carson Inlow stepped up to the plate and gets struck out to end the game.

“We felt like we played pretty good defense, we pitched pretty good but they did a good job of taking advantage of the little miscues we had,” said coach Brian McCorkle “We struggled at the plate, but we found our rhythm late but we felt real good about the things that we did despite coming up a little short.”

The loss puts Bainbridge at 4-4 on the season and 0-2 in the region.