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Following last week’s district championship game, Jefferson County head coach Zach Reese said he didn’t know how he felt about the new region tournament format and that he would just have to see how it all went over.

After Saturday, it’s safe to say Reese is perfectly OK with it.

After falling on Friday evening to Science Hill, which would have meant elimination in the old tournament format, the Patriots had to win two games on Saturday to qualify for the Class 4A Sectionals.

And that’s exactly what they did.

Taking on Daniel Boone, a team that had beaten them twice in the regular season, the Patriots scored three in the fifth and held on for a 5-4 win.

Jefferson County then took on Sevier County, a team that had beaten them five times in the season including last Saturday in the district championship. However, this time the Patriots scored four runs in the third and were off from there on their way to an 8-2 win that kept their season alive.

“It’s been a struggle with those guys (Sevier County),” Reese said. “Our guys forgot who was on the other side. That’s all on our guys. It would have been easy to roll into here after the (Boone) game and say ‘oh, here’s Sevier County again.’ But these guys came to play.”

In game one of the day, the Patriots gave up three runs in the top of the first but responded with two in the bottom half with RBIs from Isaac Lawson and Beau Revord.

Daniel Boone tacked on a run in the third to make it 4-2, but Jeff County took a 5-4 lead in the fifth. The first two runs came across on an error and passed ball before Lawson tripled and Brody Carr singled him in.

From there, the Patriots were able to hold on and take the win.

Then against Sevier County, the two teams traded zeros in the first two innings before Jefferson County put up a four-spot in the third. Those runs came on a two-RBI triple by Briley LaRue and a two-RBI single by Carr.

The Patriots added another run in the fourth on back-to-back doubles by Maddux Rogers and Drew Potts and then another run in the fifth to make it 6-0.

Sevier County finally got on the board in the sixth, but Jeff County got some insurance in the top of the seventh as Landon Thomas singled home two runs to make it 8-2. That was the final as the Patriots clinched their ticket to sectionals.

“Briley (La Rue) threw the game of his life, and we got some timely hitting,” Reese said. “It’s outstanding. Happy for these guys. At the start of the year, we ent to Farragut to scrimmage. I told them then that we only bring teams down here that we think can get back here. I give a lot of credit to our seniors. Those five guys didn’t want it to be over. “

Jeff County will now travel to Farragut for the Class 4A Sectional Series.

The two teams will play Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. and Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

The if necessary game would be Thursday after game two.

The winner of the series will move on to the Class 4A State Tournament.