By: Cameron Miller

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Brunswick High Pirates Baseball team is moving on to the Sweet 16 in the state playoffs.

The Pirates are the Class AAAAA Region 1, 3 seed, which lead them to taking a trip up to Villa Rica, Ga this past week to face off against the Villa Rica High School Wildcats.

The Wildcats were the Class AAAAA Region 5, 2 seed in this year’s state playoffs. They made it to the sweet 16 last year but ultimately, due to the great play of the Pirates, fell short of a repeat.

The first round in the bracket for this year had the Pirates scheduled to play games 1 and 2 on Wednesday the 23rd and if needed, game 3 would be played on Thursday the 24th.

The Pirates made the trip up with zero intentions of needing a game 3. They made the trip short and sweet, with a 1-0 win in game 1 and a 7-5 win in game 2, giving them a clean sweep of the series.

In Game 1, Trenton Robinson was on the mound for the Pirates, where he once again had an absolute lights-out performance.

Robinson pitched 7 full shutout innings, in which he struck out 7 batters, didn’t walk a single one of them, and only gave up 3 hits the entire game.

Brett Hickson had the game’s only RBI, with a groundout in the first inning, it was just enough for Jordan Lodise to be able to make it home to score and give the Pirates an early 1-0 lead that they held onto until the end.

In Game 2, Jordan Lodise made the start for the Pirates. Lodise pitched 4 innings for the Pirates before others such as Brett Hickson, Braxton Johnson, and Hunter Neal took the mound in relief.

Despite giving up 5 runs, the Brunswick bats were hot in this game, scoring 7 runs against the Wildcats.

Jordan Lodise led the Pirates batting going 3 for 4, with one of his hits being a double that scored 2 runs.

Garrison Strickland was also able to bring home 2 runs with a hard-hit ground ball that got through due to an error by the shortstop.

Another big hitter for the Pirates in this game was Trenton Robinson. Robinson went 1 for 2 with 2 walks, but his only hit came when they seemed to need it the most.

In a close 5-4 ball game in the bottom of the 6th inning, with Dawson Parke standing on 2nd base, he launched a series sealing, 2 run homerun over the left field wall.

Villa Rica tried to mount a comeback in the 7th, but the Pirates held on to close it out with a final score of 7-5.

The Pirates will now have to make the trip up to Warner Robins, Ga on April 29th for their Sweet 16 matchup where they will face off against the Houston County High School Bears.

Houston is the Class AAAAA Region 2, 1 Seed, so I’m sure the Pirates will be tested in this matchup, but if they can continue to stay this hot I have zero doubts in their ability to get the job done and advance to the Elite 8.