The Long County Blue Tide baseball team completed a sweep of next county region foes Liberty County on Friday, March 21. The team needed a late game surge from its offense to pull away from the Panthers 5-1 as they ended the night with a celebration of their senior class.

Dylan Lester was hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the second inning. After a fielder’s choice and another hit batter, Kolton Pickens stole third and later scored on a wild pitch for the game’s first run.

Anthony Bramwell struck out four through three innings and Creighton Rogers rang up six strikeouts in three innings of relief work.

Luke Poppell led off with a double before Rogers brought him home on a sacrifice fly to left field. Two more Tide batters reached via getting hit by a pitch and an error loaded the bases. A third hit batter in the inning, the eighth of the game, forced home another run.

The Panthers got a run in the top of the sixth on Jahair Rodriguez’s bases-loaded walk, but Rogers struck out the last two batters to get out of the inning with just one run on the board.

Isaiah Miller’s single to right with two on and two out brought home the final Tide run.

Peyton Pilon took the mound and recorded a strikeout, the team’s 11th on the night, to close out the win.

With the win, the Tide move to 11-5 and, more importantly, 5-1 in region play. They can lock up the second seed in the region crossover tournament with one more region series win.

They play a road series next week against Southeast Bulloch. They will play on the road Tuesday, March 25 and Friday, March 28 and host the Yellow Jackets on Thursday, March 27.