The Long County Blue Tide baseball team has waited a long time to win in the state playoffs. 18 years to be exact, just long enough for most of the current team to not even be born yet. The wait is now over as they swept the Morgan County Bulldogs in the first round of the GHSA AAA state playoffs on Thursday, April 29.

Game 1 started off as well as the Tide would have liked as they blasted the Bulldogs for seven runs in the top of the second inning to take an early 7-2 lead. They never gave up the lead, but did allow the Bulldogs to claw back into the game.

The Tide took Game 1 by the final of 7-6 after getting out to the big early lead. The second game, however, got out to a much different start.

The Bulldogs, who now played the role of the away team and batted first in the game as per GHSA rules, took a 2-0 lead into the third. The lead eventually built to 5-0 going into the bottom of the fifth inning.

The Tide finally got on the board with two runs in the fifth before piling on another seven runs in the sixth inning to take the 9-5 lead. The Bulldogs added two more runs in the top of the seventh, but the Tide held on for the win to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

This is the first win in the state playoffs for the Blue Tide baseball team since 2003. The team advanced the quarterfinals of the A state playoffs that season.

The Tide will now be on the road again in the second round as they travel to Zebulon, Georgia to face off against the Pike County Pirates. The Pirates were the champions of Region 2-AAA and are the defending AAA state champions from the 2019 season.

The Pirates eliminated the Tide in the first round of the playoffs in 2019. The doubleheader will take place on Tuesday, May 4 with the “if game” scheduled for Wednesday, May 5.