Pine suffered a 3-1 loss to Bunkie in the bi-district round of the Class 2A state playoffs on the road Tuesday.
“It was just kind of the story of our season I guess,” Pine coach Blake Dillon said. “Our pitcher threw well. We started Ethan (Knight) and he gave up three hits in six innings. We had the bases loaded with one out and could only get a sacrifice fly. We made a crucial error in the fourth inning that cost us two runs. It was kind of the way our season went. We left a lot of guys on base and had some errors at inopportune times.
“But we’ve won 17 games two years in a row. Our program is going in the right direction. We’re doing things the right way. We just have to continue to try to reach our goals and bring home some playoff wins.”
Knight allowed just one earned run on four hits with three strikeouts and no walks over his six innings.
Pine had four hits and left seven runners on base.
Kendall Sheridan led the offense with two hits. Knight and Rion Terrell posted one each.
Dillon Morris drove in the Raiders’ run that plated Tate Roach in the third to make it 1-0. Bunkie scored its three runs in the fourth.
The 18th-seeded Raiders finished the 2017 season with a 17-13 record.
This year’s team had seven seniors, including Roach, Cooper, Terrell, Morris, D.J. Thomas, Jarwin Jordan and Chris Mayeaux.
“I really can’t say enough about this group,” Dillon said. “It seems like I say the same thing about each class. They just want to do good for our school and our program. Each class over the last four years can say they’ve won more games over their career than the previous senior class. That shows that our program is improving and the kids have bought into our program. I’m looking forward to the future.”
No. 15 Bunkie (14-12) advances to the regional round to play second-seeded DeQuincy in a best-of-three series. DeQuincy (24-4) was a 7-4 winner over No. 31 East Feliciana. The winner plays either seventh-seeded Rosepine (18-10) or No. 10 Welsh (15-11) in the quarterfinals, which is also a best-of-three series.