East Texas Baptist University’s Wood’s Field Ballpark, Thursday, May 23, 2019 –
The Shelbyville Dragons were eliminated from the Region III semifinal game in the UIL Class 2A State Baseball Tournament on Thursday. The Dragons lost a best-of-three game series in two games to the Simms James Bowie Pirates.
In Game 1 the Pirates jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning with scores by Dalton Alford and Duece Schuler.
Shelbyville bounced back to within one run of the Pirates, in the top of the sixth inning, when Cole Ferguson scored after reaching base on a double to centerfield. He later raced home on a single to leftfield by Kaleb Campbell and SHS trailed Simms only 2-1.
Dragon Kolby Parker struck out nine Pirate batters during the complete game loss and only gave up one free base.
Game 2 saw the game go scoreless until Shelbyville took their only lead of the series when a single to centerfield by Trevor Wilbur scored teammate Michael Spears. This gave the Dragons a 1-0 lead which held up until a game-winning 7-run rally by the Pirates in the top of the sixth inning.
This ended the season for Shelbyville and the Simms Pirates, now 19-4 overall will now face the winner of the Woden versus Linden-Kildare game. The Pirates reached the playoffs as the second seed for District 17 2A. Woden took the lead in the other Region III semifinal series, on Thursday, with a 7-2 Game 1 win over Linden-Kildare at Whitehouse High School.
Shelbyville's season ended with them as undefeated District 23 champions and they posted a 23-7 overall mark.
