This was not the way the Ferriday Trojans wanted to end their season as baseball returned to the school for the first time in five years.

Ferriday had an opportunity to get in the Class 2A playoffs as the Trojans took on Lake Providence with second place in District 4-2A and a playoff spot on the line for both teams.

Instead, a controversial call in the bottom of the seventh inning resulted in a run that shouldn’t have counted for Lake Providence an inning earlier and the Panthers went on to defeat the Trojans in a slugfest 15-14 in eight innings.

“My kids are heartbroken. I don’t know what to tell them,” Ferriday head coach Steve Collins said. “This was our first shot at getting into the playoffs. I think this will motivate our guys to come back and play hard. Getting to the playoffs is not a far-fetched goal.”

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Lake Providence was leading 12-10 with runners on first and third and one out. The Panthers hit into a double play to end the inning. But an inning later, controversy ensued.

After the seventh inning was over, the score was supposed to have been Ferriday 14, Lake Providence 13, which would have meant the Trojans were playoff bound. That didn’t turn out to be the case, however, as the official scorer gave the Panthers a run despite hitting into the inning-ending double play and the game went into extra innings with the score tied at 14.

After holding Ferriday (4-14) scoreless in the top of the eighth, Lake Providence (6-12) secured the playoff spot with the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth.

“My issue with the play is if we get the guy at second and get the guy coming to first, then the run doesn’t count,” Collins said. “Later on that run counted, I couldn’t get the umpires to see what had happened until after the game.

“We wound up playing another inning but we were up 14-13. It’s one of those hard losses and you hate to see it come down to that for third.”

Kendrick Harris went 2-for-4 with a home run and Bobby Madison was 2-for-3 with two doubles for Ferriday, which had 10 hits in the game.

“We’ve got a lot to look forward to,” Collins said. “We’ve got a lot of kids coming back. We’ve played a few close games, which have taught our guys how to compete. Leonard Parker came out and pitched when we needed him to and stepped up. It’s hard for me to accept him ending his baseball career on something like that.”