The Long County Blue Tide baseball team hosted the Bacon County Raiders on Thursday and it seemed like the home team was feeling the Leap Day impacts. The team started off slow and could not complete their rally late in the game as they fell 4-2.

After blasting the Raiders 9-4 in their first meeting in Alma, the Tide looked to keep their winning ways going. However, some injuries caused the Tide to move some pieces around, leading to some defensive mistakes.

The Raiders started the top of the second inning with three straight hits for a 1-0 lead. Two more hits put two on base with one out.

Kenny Pickens worked his way out of the jam with another strikeout. A ball got past Peyton Batt behind the plate, but he made the throw back to Pickens, who got the third out at home to prevent a second run.

The Raiders added to their lead in the third on two errors. After two hits, a passed ball at the plate scored one and a dropped pop fly in left field brought home another as the Raiders boasted a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the third.

Two more batters went down for the Tide before Creighton Rogers became the first baserunner on a walk.

Jamison Thomas walked and Shannon Filkins was hit by a pitch to load the bases. With two outs, however, there was just not enough room for Landon Runyon as the Tide left the bases loaded and were still down 3-0 going into the fourth.

Filkins took over on the mound, putting Pickens back behind the plate. This was huge for the Tide as Filkins struck out two Raiders.

Rogers earned the first hit of the game for the Tide in the fifth and in the sixth, it looked as though the Tide would finally get one across the plate.

Three straight singles by Runyon, Lester, and Roderick Randall loaded the bases with just one out. However, the next two batters for the Tide struck out to end their rally with the bases loaded again.

The Raiders added one more run in the seventh to go up 4-0 as the Tide came up with three outs to score at least four runs.

They came very close to doing so, even with two outs on the board. Filkins and Runyon both singled before Pickens crushed a ball to deep centerfield, just barely missing a three-run home run. A groundout to second with Pickens on third base ended the game.

With the loss, the No. 7-ranked Tide fall to 6-2 on the season.