Live Oak — corey.davis@gaflnews.com



LIVE OAK-Despite winning the regular season title, there was one team that remained a constant thorn in Suwannee River Community Church’s side: First Baptist Church of Live Oak.  

SRCC (16-2) held off Tabernacle Baptist (15-3) by one game to win the title, with First Baptist (14-4) two games behind.

The lone team to knock off SRCC was First Baptist, which did it twice, so when First Baptist and SRCC met in the Suwannee Parks and Recreation Men’s Church League tournament at First Federal Sportsplex, you know SRCC was looking for some revenge.

But first they both had to get there, surviving a double-elimination bracket with nine other teams.

SRCC, No. 2 Tabernacle, No. 3 First Baptist and No. 4 African Baptist (12-6) all drew byes in the tournament, while No. 9 seed Live Oak Church of God (7-11) chose not to participate.   

Originally scheduled for Aug. 12-14, weather postponed most of the games during the weekend and forced officials to move several games to Monday and the championship game to Thursday.  

In opening round games, things went according to plan with all the favorites winning, as No. 8 Westwood Baptist (8-10) defeated No. 9 Antioch Baptist (4-14) 8-4, No. 5 The Village (11-7) over No. 12 Shady Grove Baptist 12-4, No. 6 St. Francis Catholic (10-8) over No. 11 Suwannee Station (4-14) 17-0 and No. 7 Mount Olive Baptist (9-9) over No. 10 Friendship Baptist (4-14) 14-10.  

All four bye teams advanced to the winners bracket semifinals as SRCC defeated Westwood 15-8, African held off the Village 17-15, First Baptist handled St. Francis 21-4 and Tabernacle defeated Mount Olive 22-16.

In the semifinals, SRCC knocked off African and First Baptist defeated Tabernacle to set up a winners bracket final between SRCC and First Baptist.

St. Francis survived the losers bracket, winning four consecutive elimination games before running into SRCC and ending their season Thursday with a third place finish.

Having already lost to First Baptist once in the tournament, SRCC had to beat First Baptist twice to win the title.

First Baptist jumped on SRCC early and held off a late SRCC rally to win 20-17 in the first game of a possible two game series and more importantly their second consecutive title.   

“The key for us winning is all of us here playing at the same time, we also hit the ball and came together as a team,” First Baptist manager Buddy Williams said. “We didn’t have a full lineup in all of our losses.”

First Baptist successfully defended its title again after sweeping the regular season and tournament title last season beating Suwannee River in the title game.