ROUND ROCK — After weathering an early storm to play Franklin even after six innings, the Brock baseball team had every reason to be optimistic about its chances of closing its time in Class 3A with its first state championship since 2006.

But a series of unfortunate events with two outs in the top of the seventh led to an unlikely three-run outburst for the Lions that proved to be the difference in a 7-4 loss at Dell Diamond.

The Eagles, who had rallied from early deficits of 3-0 and 4-1 to knot the score with a three-run bottom of the third, gave up runs in the seventh on a pop up behind the bag at third that landed fair by inches, a seeing eye grounder through the left side and a weak ground ball up the middle that second baseman Cam Harris got to, but couldn’t field cleanly enough to make a throw.

By the end of that sequence, Brock went from playing for a walk-off win in its final at-bat to staring at a deficit that proved too large to overcome. And the end result was the Eagles’ second state championship game loss in three years.

ROUND ROCK — After seeing each of its last two state tournament trips end with losses to Corpus Christi London, the Brock baseball team flipped the script on the Pirates on Friday.

This time, it was the Eagles who sent London home with a 5-2 win in the first of two Class 3A state semifinals at Dell Diamond.

Brock, which fell to the Pirates 7-2 in the 2021 semifinals and 16-13 in the 2022 championship game, never trailed Friday, scoring two runs in the top of the second before answering a two-run London sixth with a three-run outburst in the seventh to earn the win and advance to Saturday’s title game against Franklin.

WEATHERFORD  — The Brock baseball team cashed in on its scoring opportunities and kept Jacksboro from doing the same Saturday night at Weatherford College’s Roger Williams Ballpark.

In the end, that was the difference in a 9-3 win that clinched the Region I-3A championship for the Eagles and earned BHS its third state tournament trip in four years.

Coach Koby Page’s lineup scored at least one run in all six of its trips to the plate, while pitchers Cam Harris and Ethan Riley pitched around near constant base traffic to keep Jacksboro off the board until the seventh inning. And by then it was too late for the Tigers, who saw their season end one win shy of their first state appearance at 31-10-1.