Due to the Escambia County High School basketball team playing in the class 4A boys state final four in Birmingham this week, the Escambia County baseball tournament will only be a three-team tournament this year.

Tournament games were set to begin Thursday in Flomaton with all four teams taking part in the tournament.

The tournament was to begin Thursday with host Flomaton and Escambia County playing at 4 p.m. and a baseball version of the Battle of Murder Creek taking place between T.R. Miller and W.S. Neal at 6:30 p.m. On Friday, Escambia County and T.R. Miller were to begin play at 4 p.m. followed by Flomaton and W.S. Neal at 6:30 p.m. W.S. Neal and Escambia County were to play each other at noon Saturday afternoon to start things off followed by Flomaton and T.R. Miller meeting in the tournament finale at 2:30 p.m.

With the recent departure of Escambia County from the tournament, there will only be one game played each night.

Flomaton and W.S. Neal will kick things off, as they will play at 6 p.m. Thursday night in the lone game of the day. Tournament play will resume Friday at 6 p.m. with T.R. Miller and W.S. Neal taking on each other.

On Saturday, T.R. Miller and Flomaton will play in the tournament finale at 11 a.m.

Last year’s tournament in East Brewton saw the Flomaton Hurricanes come away with the tournament championship with a 3-0 record.

The Tigers of T.R. Miller came in second with a 2-1 record while W.S. Neal took third place with a 1-2 record. The Blue Devils of Atmore finished fourth as they went winless.

In the tournament last year, W.S. Neal opened the tournament with a 14-0 win over Atmore while Flomaton edged out T.R. Miller 6-5. After Friday’s games were rained out, the final four games of the tournament were all played on Saturday. T.R. Miller took down ECHS 13-3 on Saturday and then defeated W.S. Neal 3-0. Flomaton defeated W.S. Neal 4-1 and finished off Escambia County 15-3 for the tournament championship.

The 2012 championship for Flomaton was their first since winning the title in 2006. The tournament was rained out completely in 2011 while W.S. Neal won the championship in back-to-back years in 2009 and 2010. ECHS won the title in 2008 while T.R. Miller won the title in 2007.

The 2014 tournament is to be played at T.R. Miller and will then rotate to Escambia County High School in 2015, back to W.S. Neal in 2016 and to Flomaton in 2017.