Weston and Quitman both were excited about having a home-field advantage in the Regional round of the Class B state baseball playoffs, but Mother Nature had different plans. Due to the deluge that delayed the scheduled contests for both Jackson Parish schools, both were also forced to play their games at alternate locations.

With the field on the WHS campus named after legendary Weston coach Mike Staples, unplayable, the 4th-seeded Wolves moved their game against #13 Anacoco, which was played on Saturday, to their old stomping grounds at the Jackson Parish Recreation Department Sports Complex. 

Quitman, the #7 seed, wasn’t so fortunate. With their school field also unplayable, the Wolverines completely lost their home-field advantage, having to play #10 seed Stanley at the Ruston Parks and Recreation Complex on Ruston High School’s field on Thursday.

The end result was Weston beat Anacoco 4-3 to advance to the Class B Quarterfinals, where they will play #5 seed Holden, who continued their playoff journey by blanking #12 Oak Hill. No date and time for the game had been set as of press time early Sunday morning. For Quitman, seeded #7 in the 20-team bracket, the postseason came to an end after the Wolverines fell to #10 Stanley 8-4, ending the locals’ season with a 17-16 record.

Weston 4 Anacoco 3: Drew Browning smashed a home run and a double in the first two innings to plate 3 runs that helped Weston stay even with upstart Anacoco and Ty Henderson first slammed the door on any upset ideas by hurling shut out ball in relief and then sent Anacoco packing with a clutch sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 6th inning that scored Kolt Keiffer with the winning run. 

Also coming up big for the Wolves was first-year varsity starter Dawson Griffin, who went 3/3 and scored a run in the bottom of the second that tied the game at 3 apiece after Anacoco had rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead. Jase Borders was also instrumental in the victory by getting two hits in two official at-bats and reaching base after getting hit by a pitch to score ahead of Browning’s 5th home run of the season. 

Following the early inning fireworks by both offenses, Henderson came on in relief to limit Anacoco to just two singles the rest of the way, ending with 5.2 innings pitched of no-run ball to earn the victory. 

The deciding run came in the bottom of the 6th inning when Keiffer led off by getting plunked, advanced to second on a perfect sacrifice bunt by Bryce Tolar, went to third on Griffin’s third hit of the game, and scampered home on Henderson’s fly out to center field.

Stanley 8 Quitman 4: Hudson Pullig smashed a double followed by a Maddox Duck triple in the bottom of the 7th inning, but the two runs scored by Quitman were not enough to offset the six-run deficit. 

Quitman out-hit Stanley 8-2, but 9 walks given up by Wolverine pitching in the fourth and fifth innings led to disaster as Stanley capitalized on the free passes to score 8 runs. Kace West and Tucker Newton had two hits apiece, and both Cail King and Asher Rhodes got hits to go along with the late extra-base hits by Pullig and Duck.