The Monticello Billies and Lady Billies will both enter the Class 4A State Championship Tournament in Gravette as the second seeds from the 4A South Region.
For the Billies, they entered the Regional Tournament as the fourth seed and had to open tournament play against the one seeded Nashville Scrappers.
Nashville would take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning but the Billies would get two runs in the top of the sixth inning after a walk to Warren Pennington followed by a double by Jagger Hines.
Brooks Bowman grounded out but recorded a game-tying RBI followed by a single by Latyn Nichols that scored a run to give the Billies a 2-1 lead.
Easton Byrd would get the scrappers out in the next two innings to give the Billies the 2-1 win, qualifying for the 4A State Tournament.
Monticello would advance to the Regional Championship contest on Saturday with an 8-7 win over the Warren LumberJacks.
Monticello would face Magnolia in the final contest of the regional.
The Panthers would get on top of the Billies in the bottom of the first inning with five runs.
Monticello would get a run back in the top of the fourth inning and would get three runs in the top of the sixth inning but would fall short, 5-4, taking the runner-up position.
The Billies will travel to Gravette, Arkansas for the 4A State Championship Tournamentand will get a first round bye before facing the winner of Robinson and Ozark on Friday, May 10, at 5:30 pm.
The Lady Billies entered the Regional Tournament as the one seed from the 8-4A and would face Magnolia in the first round and would get home runs from Addi Frazer and Ashley Hales with Alaina Lyle pitching five no hit innings, striking out 12 batters as the Lady Billies would shut out Magnolia 10-0.
Returning for two games on Saturday, in the semi-final matchup the Lady Billies would face Malvern.
Malvern would get on the board first in the top of the third inning scoring a run on an error for a 1-0 lead.
Monticello would tie the contest in the bottom of the inning on a sole home run by Libby Kingston.
The Lady Billies added three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to extend the lead to 4-1 on three consecutive singles by Allie Ragalado, Skylar Burns, and Kingston.
Malvern would get a run in the top of sixth with Monticello adding a run in the bottom of the inning on Kingston’s second home run of the contest for 6-2 final score.
Lyle would once again strike out 12 batters in the contest.
Facing Nashville in the final game of the tournament, Nashville would end the Lady Billies undefeated streak, out scoring the Lady Billies 7-3 for the championship with Monticello taking the runner up position and dropping their overall record to 24-1.
The Lady Billies will face the winner of Brookland and Pea Ridge on Friday in Gravette in the second round of the 4A State Tournament at 5:30 pm.
Baseball and softball; are not the only Monticello teams qualifying for state as the Billies and Lady Billies soccer teams will travel to Robinson on Thursday, May 9, for the first round of the 4A State Soccer Championship Tournament.
The Lady Billies will face Harding Academy at 9 am with the Billies squaring off against Brookland at 11 am.
