Brookwood’s Chandler Stencel is congratulated by Dr. Mark Hudson, the Warriors’ third base coach, following his first inning home run Thursday at Strickland Field.

After finishing off Thursday’s Game 1, Byron Strickland will start today.

As Brookwood looks to finish off the GISA Class AAA quarterfinal series against visiting Stratford Academy at 11 a.m. today, the 23-4 Warriors are turning to their senior right-hander.

“He’ll be good to go,” Brookwood coach Ken Johnson said following Thursday’s thrilling 10-9 walk-off Warrior win to open the best-of-3 set.

There, Strickland entered in the seventh as Brookwood’s third pitcher. He needed just seven pitches to retire the Eagles in order and then earned the win — his 11th of the season to no defeats — when James Casanova hit a one-out home run off the Strickland Field scoreboard to end it.

Casanova will also be available to pitch in relief today after hurling two innings Thursday. The senior righty also enjoyed a quick first inning as he retired the first five Stratford hitters he faced. However with two outs in the sixth, Casanova ran into trouble as the Eagles rattled off three straight hits in rallying from a 9-7 hole to tie the game.

If Stratford, which has lost all three meeting with Brookwood so far this season, forces the deciding third game, which would follow Game 2 today, the Warriors may turn back to Thursday’s starter Jordan Bradshaw. The left-hander allowed seven runs on nine hits in four innings as Stratford clawed out of a 6-0 deficit. But in the process, he also wasn’t overworked.

Still, Johnson hopes his availablity is an unneeded luxury.

“Jordan didn’t throw many pitches so we’ll have him ready to go and James will be back ready to go,” he said. “It’d be nice to win the first one and not have to play the third one.”