St. Patrick High School's Robert Starks slides in at second base safely as Southeast Lauderdale High School's Zack Flaskcamp lunges for the ball Friday night.

Trailing 6-3 in the bottom of the seventh, Southeast Lauderdale High School’s Dylan Shirley drew a walk and took first base to start the inning.

Two batters later, Ethan Boatner singled to move Shirley over to second. During the next at-bat, Zach Flaskcamp contributed with an RBI single to score Shirley  and make the score 6-4 in the frame.

The Tigers’ late-inning rally, however, just fell short Friday night as St. Patrick High School defeated SEL 6-4 to grab Game 1 in a best-of-three series in the Class 3A MHSAA playoffs.

No stranger to hard-fought battles this season, Tigers head coach Shay Cooper said his team’s mental toughness will prove beneficial as Southeast Lauderdale takes to the road today to face the Fighting Irish in Biloxi for Game 2.

“This year, we have been proud of that more than anything,” Cooper said about his squad’s mettle. “Our guys have had several opportunities over the course of the season where things maybe didn’t go well for us and we could have dropped our heads. But young, old, all these kids do a great job with keeping their heads up and continuing to play the game. I’ve been very proud of that.”

SEL’s Trevor Shirley launched a home run over the left-field wall in the bottom of the second to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead, but a home run by St. Patrick’s Brennan Gioe and a run scored on a SEL fielding error, tied the score at two in the top of the third. The score would remain knotted at two until the top of the fifth when another Tigers fielding error resulted in two Fighting Irish runs, giving St. Patrick a 4-2 lead at the end of the frame.

“We’re at a point now where every play is big,” Cooper said. “You try to make all the plays, and at the end of the game you look back, and some were bigger than others. But, yeah, that was probably a turning point, but more than likely it would have scored a run anyway. You have to make the most out of all opportunities.”

SEL senior Alec Marlow opened the bottom of the sixth with a double to right field. Pinch runner Bennett Massey replaced Marlow on second and scored the Tigers’ third run of the contest. Marlow, who received the start at pitcher for SEL, said despite the loss, Southeast Lauderdale turned in a valiant effort all the way through. Marlow went 4 1/3 innings, and only allowed one run.

“We’re resilient,” Marlow said. “We faced adversity, and we tried to get ourselves back in the game, and we did. We fought through it and had base runners and had a good chance to win there at the end.”

Trevor Shirley led SEL in RBIs with two, and the Tigers as a team combined for seven hits. Marlow and Dylan Shirley recorded SEL’s two multi-base hits in the contest.