Phil Campbell’s season ends after Bobcats drop second round series at Oakman

The Phil Campbell High School varsity baseball team (24-14), ranked No. 6 in Class 3A, was eliminated from the AHSAA postseason over the weekend, falling to the hosting Oakman High School Wildcats (24-14) in the best-of-three series. The Bobcats won game one 5-1 but dropped the next two by scores of 14-6 and 10-4.

“We pitched an unbelievable game one and then in games two and three we just didn’t execute,” Phil Campbell head coach Griffin Harris said. “We had too many errors and hung too many breaking balls, and they made us pay for it. That’s really the best way to sum up the series: they capitalized on mistakes and we didn’t.”

The stars of game one, played on Friday, May 1, were PCHS freshman Jack Owens and junior Isaac Duboise; Owens dealt on the mound and Duboise delivered in the batter’s box.

Phil Campbell delivered its first blow in the top of the first inning when, after a two-out walk and stolen base by senior Hagen Raper, Duboise drove in the first of his three RBIs of the game on a single to right field.

After the Bobcats took the 1-0 lead, baserunners for both teams were pretty scarce for the next five innings.

Toeing the rubber for PCHS for six and a third innings, Owens gave up just three hits and allowed two walks in the win. The one Oakman run allowed, which was unearned, only came in the bottom of the seventh after Phil Campbell had increased its lead to 5-0, back-to-back RBI doubles by Duboise and Shooter Motes and an RBI single by Reed Jackson in the seventh accounting for the production.

“Jack ended up being one of our better arms at the end of the season. He pitched great in the first game (vs. Oakman),” Harris said. “Taking on that role of throwing in game one and doing a great job in both (playoff) series, as a freshman, I think that’s going to be big for him going forward.”

Relieving Owens in the seventh was Motes, who was perfect while recording the final two outs.

The excellence of game one, however, did not transfer over to the next two contests. In the second game Friday, Oakman used 14 hits and five PCHS errors to even the series 1-1. The following day, Saturday, it was more of the same: aided by four Bobcat errors, the Wildcats added 10 hits to win by a final of 10-4.

Game two saw Phil Campbell take an initial 3-0 lead after two innings thanks to a two-run double by Raper and an Oakman error. But the Wildcats responded after that with an 11-2 run that made it an 11-5 ballgame after four innings. Oakman would go on to add three more insurance runs in the top of the seventh.

Raper and Duboise had two RBIs for PCHS in the defeat. Four different Bobcats made appearances on the bump. Duboise and Sage Morgan pitched the longest at three innings apiece, but it was Duboise who took the loss. The junior allowed seven runs (four earned) off nine hits.

In game three, it was Oakman who took the first lead and pretty much kept it for the entire game. A five-run bottom of the second for the Wildcats made it a 5-2 contest; that would have ultimately been enough offense to win it in the end but the hosts tagged on five more runs over the next four innings anyway.

Phil Campbell’s first two runs were scored in the second inning via an RBI single by Jackson and RBI groundout by Miles Duboise. The Bobcats would later score solo runs in the sixth and seventh innings—a sacrifice fly by Jackson scored the first, a single by Benford the second—but it wasn’t nearly enough to bring off a comeback.

Despite the disappointing end to the campaign, Griffin was proud of what the Bobcats were able to do in 2026 and said he is looking forward to what they’ll do in the years to come.

“I think it was a very successful season. We graduated I think seven starters from last year’s team and guys that contributed. Coming into this year we were expected to be inexperienced, and I don’t think many people expected us to win 24 games. I think that’s a testament to our kids and their hard work and buying in to what we’re trying to do,” he said. “We started four freshmen at times so some guys had to grow up quick and contribute.

“I’m excited about the future. I think this is a good group,” he added. “We lose one senior starter and two other guys that contributed to this team, but we’ve got a good core coming back, so I think it’s going to be a bright future.”