Eau Gallie Commodores Advance to FHSAA Final Four After Defeating New Smyrna Beach 8-7

By Space Coast Daily // May 17, 2022

first final four appearance since 1983

The Eau Gallie Commodores baseball win the FHSAA Class 5A Regional Championship after defeating New Smyrna Beach 8-7 on Monday. (Jeff Bragg FB image)

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – The Eau Gallie Commodores baseball won the FHSAA Class 5A Regional Championship on Monday after defeating New Smyrna Beach 8-7 to advance to the State Semifinal.

The No.3 ranked Commodores are set to play No.2 Columbia in the FHSAA Final Four on Thursday in Fort Myers at 4 p.m.

Eau Gallie Commodores Baseball (20-6) does not go quietly into the night but instead earned a berth to a state semifinal game against Columbia High School set to be played in Hammond Stadium.

CLICK HERE to watch the FHSAA State Semifinals on the NFHS Network>>>

The Commodores advanced to the final four for the first time since 1983.

The New Smyrna Beach Barracudas scored quickly in the first inning after a sacrifice fly and a single scored two. The Cudas’ Mattox Meeks tacked on a run when he hit a single giving the Barracudas a 3-0 first-inning lead.

Eau Gallie got on the board in the third inning when Josh Dexter brought in a run, cutting the lead to 3-1.

Then, senior Brandon Bragg, a 5-foot-10, 235-pound athlete crushed a three-run homer to put the Commodores ahead 4-3.

Bragg addressed the media afterward saying, “In my opinion, when we start hitting, the rest of the team feeds off it.”

True to form, Eau Gallie went on to score four more runs in the third inning taking the lead 8-3.

New Smyrna Beach rallied back when Meeks hit his own three-run homer in the fifth inning to cut into the Commodores lead 8-6.

The Barracudas scored just once more in the sixth inning, coming up just short ending their season in an 8-7 defeat.

The 21-6 Commodores now face Columbia High School Tigers (Lake City) after their 7-6 win over Tallahassee Lincoln Trojans on Monday night.

The Tigers came from behind to beat the Trojans in the Region 1-5A final, punching Columbia’s ticket to the FHSAA final four for the first time in program history.

Head Coach Chris Howard, who is in his first season at Columbia, said he didn’t come into the season thinking the Tigers would see 20 wins — let alone 20 plus and a trip to the program’s first final four.

The Tigers are currently 22-8.

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