The Hoptown Hoppers will be the No. 4 seed for the Ohio Valley League playoffs despite falling to the Fulton Railroaders 13-6 in the regular-season finale Friday night in Hopkinsville.
Those two teams will turn around and play again Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Hopkinsville High School in the opening-round play-in game in the OVL playoffs.
The Hoppers (17-21) will take on the fifth-seeded Railroaders (13-25) for the right to advance to the semifinals.
The winner will meet the top-seeded Madisonville Miners (23-17) in a best-of-3 semifinal round beginning Monday night at Elmer Kelley Stadium at Madisonville City Park.
The other semifinal series will pit the No. 2 Henderson Flash against the No. 3 Paducah Chiefs. Both teams finished the regular season 22-17, but the Flash get home-field advantage because of winning the season series 6-3 over the Chiefs. Game 1 begins Monday night at Park Field in Henderson.
A five-run fifth inning was the difference Friday night as Fulton won at Hoptown. That turned a 3-2 Hoppers’ lead into a 7-3 deficit.
The Hoppers got back to within 7-6 through seven innings, but Fulton put up three-spots in both the eighth and ninth to finish off the win.
