Rain ends Tobs’ hopes for a playoff spot

WILMINGTON — In the end, the Wilson Tobs faced a foe they simply could not conquer — the weather.

Needing to beat the Wilmington Sharks on their Buck Hardee Field on Friday night in order to have a shot at taking the final Petitt Cup playoff spot from the Coastal Plain League’s East Division, the Tobs arrived in the Port City on Friday as it was raining buckets and had been for most of the afternoon and overnight. Wilmington remains in a coastal flood watch, the final soggy stamp on yet another season without a championship for the one of the CPL’s longest-running teams.

The Tobs, at 24-19, remain 1 1/2 games behind the Sharks (26-18) for the second-best overall record in the East and a ticket to the postseason since the Peninsula Pilots won both halves of the season. The season finale is set for Saturday night at Fleming Stadium against the Greenville Yard Gnomes.

There will be fireworks after the contest.

The Tobs, who led the East for most of the first half of the season only to falter late to the Pilots, simply ran out of dry ground and time. Rain, which rarely was seen in the first half of the season, became a constant nuisance over the final two weeks of the regular season, which ends Saturday and the Petitt Cup playoffs begin Sunday. Wilson entered the week two games behind the Sharks, who had a doubleheader at Tri-City wiped out by rain and have only played once this week — a 12-1 loss Thursday at Morehead City.

The Tobs never got a chance to pass the Sharks.

“It’s always frustrating being the first one on the outside looking in on a playoff spot, especially considering only four teams get the opportunity,” Tobs general manager Mike Bell conveyed in a text. “It breaks your heart even more when it’s the weather and not the play on the field that dictates the outcome.

“We were hoping to work with the league to try and make up the game versus Wilmington to provide a fair advantage to both teams due to weather but unfortunately we were denied that opportunity.”

Wilson will take 9-10 second-half record against Greenville into the season finale, which naturally faces scant possibility of rain.

“At the end of the day you have to learn from it and keep pushing forward,” Bell said. “We are now focused on (Saturday’s) final home game of the season at Fleming Stadium where we plan to go out ‘with a bang.’

“The team is ready to play some baseball with beautiful weather in the forecast and our staff is ready to provide the fans with an exciting atmosphere, pregame music, one-of-a-kind fireworks show and a Tobs win to end the season!”

The Pilots will host Wilmington in game 1 of the East Division championship series on Sunday night. West Division first-half winner Forest City, which has plummeted to fifth place in the second half, will see how the dust shakes out but the Owls are hosting Lexington County, currently in first place by a game over the Martinsville Mustangs, in Saturday’s finale that could be a West championships playoff preview.

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