COLUMBUS — Schley County fell behind early and its comeback attempt at Brookstone came up short as the Wildcats fell 6-5 on Thursday.

The loss puts the Wildcats on the road for the first round of the Class A playoffs as they finished third in Region 4-A. It’s the first time in at least three years Schley County will be on the road in the first round.

“I knew if we made errors like we did against Taylor that we’d have a tough time winning,” said coach Chuck Cheek. “It’s tough to lose, and we don’t like losing. But sometimes you just get beat. Sometimes they’re better than you are.”

Schley (18-7, 9-3) fell behind 6-0 after four innings before scoring two in the fifth and three in the sixth.

Brookstone (15-10, 9-3) made two errors in the first inning, but the Wildcats failed to take advantage. Schley committed two infield errors in the third, and the Cougars capitalized scoring three unearned runs.

“I feel like we beat ourselves tonight,” said Cheek. “We’ve really got to get more solid on defense. They did a really good job of taking advantage of our mistakes. They don’t make mistakes, but when they do, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

Will Gordon had a two-run single in the fifth while Jesse Colter had a RBI-triple and Nik Bentley had a RBI-single in the sixth. Andy Miller scored on a wild pitch to close the gap to 6-5.

David Byrd pitched six innings allowing six runs (3 earned) on 11 hits with four strikeouts. Neal Amos countered by pitching six innings, allowing nine hits to go with seven strikeouts.

Amos also had a two-run bloop single in the fourth for the Cougars.

Schley will face a familiar foe in the first round in Wilcox County, which lost to Telfair County 2-1 in nine innings on Thursday. The Wildcats lost both meetings with the Patriots this year by 6-5 and 4-3 counts.

Games 1 and 2 will be played on May 9 with a deciding Game 3 to be played if necessary on Saturday.

Pacelli wrapped up the region title with a 14-1 win against Taylor County. The Vikings are 21-2 on the year and had one region loss — at Schley County. Cheek said that fact alone says a lot about his team.

“We can be one of the best teams in the state on any given day and beat anybody,” he said. “Then there’s times where we can be beat on any given day. It’s whichever team shows up. We’re trying to get more consistent. We’ve got the ability, we’ve got to make better decisions at times.”

BROOKSTONE 6, SCHLEY CO. 5