While they

will be watching the rest of the state baseball playoffs from home, the

McIntosh Chiefs made historic strides in the 2003 season, which ended

with a heartbreaking 8-4 loss to Colquitt County Saturday.

"It was

a big season," said Toby Black, in his eighth year as head coach.

"We'd have liked it to go a little bit farther, but they [Colquitt

County] just had a little more offense than we had."

The Chiefs

finished 20-9 on the year, the first time in school history they posted

that many wins. After setting a goal of making the state playoffs, they

went farther in the postseason than ever before by defeating Wayne County

in two straight games in the first round and winning one game against

Colquitt County in their best-of-three series.

Of the Chiefs'

nine losses, eight were to teams who are in the state rankings or made

the state playoffs. In addition to Colquitt County, they lost twice to

Fayette County and twice to East Coweta both of whom are still alive in

the tournament.

The Chiefs

started hot Saturday in their final game, as Tim Battle and John King

hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the first. Colquitt County answered

with a run in the first off McIntosh starter Ryan Schwartz.

After that,

Colquitt County simply kept chipping away as they had the entire series,

with two runs in the second, two in the third and one in the fourth after

Battle came on in relief. Black estimated that there were only a few innings

in the entire series in which Colquitt did not score.

"Schwartz

did a very good job," said Black. "They just continually plugged

away offensively and put pressure on us. Defensively, we made good plays.

They hit a lot of doubles in the gap and seeing-eye singles."

The Chiefs

got their other two runs in the fifth, starting with two walks and an

RBI single by Brent Rosa. After an intentional walk to Battle and a strikeout,

J.T. Thompson walked to force in a run, but McIntosh left the bases loaded.

Colquitt closed

out the series with two runs in the sixth.

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