Bombers playing with confidence

For a team that didn't have an impressive regular-season record, Mountain Home more than made up for it in last week's Class 6A state baseball tournament.

The Bombers (10-19) swung their way to three consecutive upsets in as many days and will get a chance to win their first state title in 19 years when they face 7A/6A-East Conference rival Jonesboro at 10 a.m. today at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville.

"There's been so much excitement around here that at times, it's been a little overwhelming," Mountain Home Coach Jim Tejcek said. "But we're not going to complain one bit. The community has been great, and I told the kids to enjoy it all.

"But they understand that there's still one more thing that we want to accomplish so they've kind of stayed level-headed about everything."

Mountain Home dropped four of its first five games of the year, then won four in a row before losing 15 of its final 17 regular-season games. At one point, the Bombers lost nine consecutive games, including back-to-back 10-0 shutouts to Poplar Bluff (Mo.) and Cabot.

"The guys just didn't have much faith in themselves," he said. "They lacked confidence and didn't know how to finish games. Guys were afraid to be on the mound, afraid to be in the batter's box when games were tight. But I told them to just keep plugging and plugging because things would only get better."

Tejcek said he saw a change in his team during a May 3 home loss against Jonesboro.

"They started believing," he said. "We played well, really well. We lost the game 10-5, but we were up 4-1 in the sixth inning before imploding.

"We played them again at [Jonesboro] a few days later, and they just beat us. We lost that one 7-2, but they played with a lot of confidence, and that's something that was a problem for us."

Mountain Home, which won its first and only title in 1997, showed confidence come state-tournament time, reeling off victories over Pine Bluff, the No. 3 seed from the 6A-South, and Alma, the 7A/6A-Central champion.

Against the Zebras, the Bombers jumped out to a 4-0 lead and weathered a pair of late rallies to win 8-6. One day later, Mountain Home got a game-winning, two-run single from Carson Yarbrough in the seventh to beat Alma 5-3, but it was the Bombers' 3-2, come-from-behind victory over defending-champion Sheridan that may have been their most impressive. The Bombers trailed 2-1 in the seventh and were down to their final out when Yarbrough and McClain Edington came through with consecutive RBI singles to eliminate the host team.

"We've always saw [Mountain Home] as a tough team," Jonesboro Coach Mark Dobson said. "Their record isn't indicative of their effort, and we saw that first-hand. They've got good pitching, and they can hit it well."

Tejcek admits that his team will have to do both in order to beat the Hurricane today.

"I really admire Coach Dobson and his staff over there, I really do," he said. "They do what they do well. I've always said that they are the best two-strike hitting team I've ever seen.

"They force you to make plays to beat them so we're going to have to pitch well and play solid defense in order to compete."

Jonesboro (17-6), the top seed out of the 7A/6A-East, knocked off Lake Hamilton 4-3 in the second round before running away from Greenwood, 5-2, in the semifinals. The Hurricane, who are looking to win their second title since 2013, have the luxury of beating the Bombers twice this season, but Dobson said he's not banking on that to help them today.

"We've gotta do the same things that we've been doing all year," he said. "We have to find ways to get on base and get hits. To get to this point, you've got to have guys step up, and we've had that over the second half of the season.

"But we've got to take it one play at a time. It's going to be a close, tough game because we know what Mountain Home is going to bring to the table."

Sports on 05/20/2016