The Lexington County Blowfish wrapped up the regular season schedule Saturday night with a 9-7 win against the Macon Bacon. They end their regular season with a second half record of 16-8 and an overall record of 28-18. 

“A roller coaster,” Blowfish head coach KC Brown said when describing the regular season. “Just a roller coaster of emotion or a bunch of win streaks and some losing streaks. It’s just a whirlwind. It feels like we just started yesterday but also drug on at times as well. So it’s just been a roller coaster.”

The Blowfish got on the board as early as the second inning when a Warren Holzemer home run to left field scored two. A few wild pitches resulted in a pair of Blowfish runs from Ryan Ouzts and Cade Bouknight and a sacrifice fly from Travis Elliott scored Josh Topper to give the Blowfish a 5-0 lead after two.

The Bacon made things a little more interesting with two runs in the fourth inning and a solo home run in the top of the sixth to cut the Blowfish advantage to 5-3.

The Blowfish got that cushion back and some back in the bottom half of the inning. Phillip Ard’s double scored Ashby Vining, Ouzts’ hard hit single scored Holzemer, a throwing error on a Bouknight ground ball scored Ard and a Thomas Powell sacrifice fly scored Bouknight. The offensive explosion in the inning resulted in a 9-3 lead going into the seventh.

Blowfish starter Robbie Boykin was relieved in the seventh by former River Bluff state champion pitcher Matthew Garris. The Bacon got to him with two runs and cut the lead back down to 9-5 before getting out of the inning. Garris joined the team for the final game to save some pitchers for the playoffs. 

Macon tacked on a run in the eighth inning to cut the deficit to 9-6. With runners on second and third with two outs, Bacon All-Star Jarrett Jenkins smoked a line drive to third base but Landry Mead made an incredible diving catch to get the Blowfish out of the inning and minimize the damage.

Macon picked up a run in the ninth but it wasn’t enough as the Blowfish picked up the win in their regular season finale. 

The attention of the Blowfish now heads to their first playoff series since 2015 against the Forest City Owls. 

The Owls are projected to start Noah Palmese, who posted an impressive 1.14 earned run average in 15 innings of action so far this year in game one. Brown wouldn’t disclose the decision he’s made to start in the playoff opener. 

“Luckily we were able to clinch and kind of save some arms the last few days. Won’t give out too many secrets but you know, I feel good where we’re at, I feel like we’re pretty deep. We’ve kind of taken care of our guys throughout the summer so now we can kind of let them roll,” Brown said. 

 Game two will be played at Lexington County Baseball Stadium Monday Aug. 7 and if the series is tied at one after the first two games, the deciding third contest will bein Lexington County after the Blowfish’s 12-1 win over the Owls on July 27 gave them a 5-4 regular season record over the Owls and earned them home field advantage for the series. 

“It’s a very competitive series,” Brown said. “Got chippy at times, which was awesome and just a natural part of baseball but yeah, they’re a really good team and they’re really really hard to beat at their place so we got our work cut out for us tomorrow. Obviously I feel good and glad we have home field advantage but we got to work it out tomorrow. We got to get after it.