Kosciusko entered last week tied with New Hope atop the Region 4-4A standings and is scheduled to play a home-and-away series against the Trojans that carried playoff-defining implications.
Kosciusko (17-7-1) split its series with New Hope to claim a No. 2 seed in the upcoming postseason as the Whippets’ run differential during the regular season served as a tiebreaker.
“With probably the fifth or sixth tiebreaker, we ended up finishing as the two seed,” Kosciusko coach Jonathan Jones said. “We’ll get the three seed out of district three.”
More importantly, the No. 2 seed ensured the Whippets home-field advantage for the first round of the playoffs beginning Friday. Kosciusko draws Clarksdale for the three-game series, which will follow a home-away-home format in the best-of-three series.
“We don’t know a lot about them,” Jones said of his postseason opponent. “They Delta district doesn’t usually have a lot of coaches who call you back, but from what I’ve seen about them, they have a couple of guys who can swing it pretty well and a couple of pitchers who can fill it up. It’ll be tough – anyone in the playoffs will have a good team. We just have to play our game.”
Kosciusko opened last week with a 5-1 loss to New Hope on Tuesday.
Evan Scott went 2-for-3, while Lucas Price, Tyler Vancise and Brandon Black hit singles. Vancise provided the Whippets with their lone RBI.
The Whippets used two pitchers in the loss. Vancise pitched 2 and 1/3 innings and Nolen Yuille went 4 and 1/3 innings. The both tallied three strikeouts apiece.
Kosciusko and New Hope met again last Friday, and the Whippets used a 10-6 win in nine innings to help secure the No. 2 seed in the postseason.
Micah Parker finished 4-for-5, Jon Deason was 2-for-3, Chase Morgan went 2-for-5 and Eldarius Roby ended 2-for-6.
Morgan, Roby and Denson each plated two runners.
Parker threw five innings of six-hit ball to pick up the win. He struck out five, walked two and allowed two earned runs.
Kosciusko will host senior night Monday for its regular-season finale against Magee. Jones said his squad will look to carry over the momentum from its late-week win against New Hope into the postseason as it begins its push for the state crown.
“It just gives us confidence because we didn’t exactly play great; we played OK the first game, but didn’t play awfully,” Jones said. “We came out the next night against a really good left-hander and knocked him out early and even gave up the lead late, and still came back and was able to get the lead back in a really tough extra-inning affair. Just a really good playoff-type atmosphere for us that got us a little more ready for the playoffs.”
