OCILLA — Twenty years after Irwin County made its last baseball final four, the Indians are back.

The Indians host Telfair County today in the semifinals in a best-of-three series. Head coach Drew Tankersley said the first pitch of the first game is set for 4 p.m. Game two will follow this evening. If a third game is required, it will be Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Times and dates are subject to change in case of rain.

If the surname of Irwin’s head coach sounds familiar, it seems that baseball success is genetic. Drew Tankersley’s father, Cliff, was in charge of the Indians in 1998.

Irwin defeated Emanuel County Institute in the elite eight last week, 7-2 and 4-3, to advance to the semis. Zach Smith won on the hill, striking out five in 6.1 innings.

The Indians had a five-run fourth inning for the winning margin. Kodie Spires and Brodie Chestnutt each had two hits.

“Our motto this year has been ‘do simple better’ and in that big fourth inning, we did a lot of simple things that turned into big runs,” said Tankersley. “We executed a squeeze play, stole home, had several hits and had a sacrifice fly.”

Freshman Brodie Chestnutt went eight innings in game two and struck out 13 men while allowing no earned runs.

Irwin had a 3-0 lead in the contest before ECI tied it up in the bottom of the seventh. The lead went right back to the Indians in the top of the eight on Keegan Folker’s first home run of the year.

Chesnutt pitched a 1-2-3 eighth for the win, finishing the contest with a strikeout.

Tankersley said Folker’s homer “came out of nowhere.”

“Brodie showed a lot of guts out there tonight,” he said. “For a freshman to face adversity like he did in the bottom of the seventh and then come back out in the eight and finish like he did, that’s special.”

Chesnutt had two hits in the game at the plate. Besides Folker’s and Chesnutt’s heroics, Turner Chambliss and Reid Fletcher also had two hits in the second game against ECI.

Telfair, who is a member of Region 2-A along with Irwin, defeated Baconton Charter in the elite eight and yet another Region 2-A school, Lanier County, in the second round.