Hallsville Baseball’s Season Ends With 6-2 Loss Against Frisco Wakeland

DALLAS -- It's the end of an era for the Hallsville baseball program.

The season came to a close in Game 3 of the Class 5A Region II semifinal series with a 6-2 loss to Frisco Wakeland at Dallas Jesuit's Wright Field.

"I'm very proud of what these guys accomplished," Bobcats head coach Scott Mitchell said. "Several of them have been here for the last three years and some of them have been here for four. These guys have put a lot of wins in the record books and won a lot of championships."

Coby Weaver held Frisco Wakeland's damage to six runs with four scoreless relief innings in his final high school game. (Rob Graham, ETSN.fm)

Hallsville (27-7) reached the Class 4A tournament last season and finished three wins shy of a return trip on the new Class 5A level. Five wins from a state championship.

The team put together two rallies against Wakeland (22-11) in Game 2 Friday. That was apparently all left in the tank.

Wakeland put up three runs on four hits in the top of the first. It added another three-spot in the third inning while the Bobcats worked their way out to three early errors.

Credit Dallas Baptist signee Coby Weaver, an offensive hero the day before, for keeping Hallsville kicking from that point. He took the mound in relief with no outs in the third inning on the heels of throwing 101 pitches in a four-inning start Thursday in Game 1 and held Wakeland scoreless through the game's final four innings.

Weaver finished with 180 pitches on the weekend, allowing one earned run and just two hits in his final high school game.

"He came up to me this morning and said, 'Coach, I'll give everything I've got. Don't be afraid to use me,'" Mitchell said. "I went to him and said, 'Can you throw?' He said, 'I can throw until we're ahead.'"

With that, Mitchell put his hands up.

"It was a good outing for him to come back after Thursday," the head coach continued. "He kept us in the ball game and gave us some chances. We had some chances. We just couldn't get the big hits when we needed them, but my hat's off to Wakeland."

Ty Meissner dives out to catch Frisco Wakeland courtesy runner Garrett Martin in a run down. (Rob Graham, ETSN.fm)

Hallsville began a rally in the bottom of the third.

Jacob Walker, Ty Meissner and Austin Blakeley combined to load the bases. Carson Henderson hit a one-out RBI single to get the team on the board and Logan Bailey followed it up with a sacrifice fly, but the seventh batter of the frame popped out to end the chance.

The Bobcats out hit Wakeland through the remainder of the game, three to one. Unfortunately, all three hits came in separate innings.

Wakeland broke scoring with a two-out RBI hit from cleanup hitter Jared Martin to left field. Jake White played to right field later in the first inning for an RBI base hit and a second runner reached home on a fielding error.

Johnny Gonzales led off the Wakeland third inning with a base hit. A fielding error let him score on the next at-bat. Two balls in the dirt from Weaver in the third inning allowed Wakeland to extend its lead to 6-0, a wild pitch and a passed ball charged against the catcher.

The Bobcats finished the postseason portion of their schedule with a 7-3 record. They captured the District 15-5A title with three games to spare and had a 13-1 league mark entering the playoffs.

Senior first and third baseman Austin Blakeley, a Texas A&M Corpus-Christi signee, broke the state doubles record last week in the regional quarterfinals series against Lufkin. He finished his senior campaign with 26 doubles, two better than the record at the end of 2014.

With the loss, East Texas is out of Class 5A representatives. Sulphur Springs fell in a two-game sweep against Prosper in the other Region II semifinal series.

Wakeland will take on Prosper this week with a state tournament berth on the line. The one Hallsville's nine seniors sought to claim for a second consecutive season.

"I told them, 'Hold your heads high,'" Mitchell said. "'You guys put Hallsville on the map.' Not a lot of people know where Hallsville is, but when they talk about baseball they're kind of figuring out where Hallsville is now."

Hallsville's players and coaching staff console each other after a 6-2 loss in Game 3 of the Class 5A Region II semifinal round. (Rob Graham, ETSN.fm)