TUNICA &045; When Tunica’s Blue Devils left the yard for the seventh and eighth time of the series, Huntington could have just dropped its jaw and waved a white flag.

Come on &045; you know that’s not going to happen.

The Hounds rallied and at least went down with a fight to the Blue Devils in Game 3 of the Class A state championship series, 6-3, to end the season at 23-9. The Hounds, who had to fight to get a division title, had a shot at their first state title since 1998 following Thursday’s win but couldn’t get the hits early.

Yet getting to a level no one thought you’d get doesn’t lessen the sting of the loss. At least immediately after the loss.

&uot;I am proud of our kids for their dedication and things they did to our program to get as far as we have,&uot; Hounds head coach Mitch Ashmore said. &uot;They’ve been through a lot, asked of a lot and demanded of a lot. I’m disappointed in the loss. Nobody likes to get to the final game of a state championship series and lose. We gave it our all and played well.&uot;

The Blue Devils (17-2) put runs on the board courtesy of the long ball off pitchers Jacob Bonnette and Landon Willard before Trey Keith entered and finished the game out. But the damage came early as Kyle Abrams hit a solo homer in the second for the game’s first run and Jim Pegram slammed a two-run shot in the third inning as part of a three-run third.

The Blue Devils had a 4-0 lead before getting two in the fifth thanks in part to two Huntington errors. Keith got the first two outs of the inning on groundouts before the Hounds made an error on a throw to first and another on a misplayed ball in the infield, and Tunica got both runners home to score for a 6-0 lead.

Bonnette got the start but got into the third and had to leave after he slid in hard to a base earlier in the game.

&uot;Something happened,&uot; Ashmore said. &uot;He jammed his fingers diving to first or something, and I went out there and they were swollen. Keith did a great job for us coming into that situation. He really held a great hitting team down. He should have been out of that fifth and not given up anything. That hurt us.&uot;

The Hounds finally got to starter Brent Sharpe a little in the sixth inning after getting just two hits in the first five off the Blue Devils’ Game 1 starter. In the sixth Chad Thomas got a single to lead off, moved up on Trey Corbett’s walk, went to third on Ples Arthur’s groundout and scored on Mike Ferguson’s groundout.

Things, however, got interesting in the seventh when the Hounds scored two and were threatening.

Huston Eliser reached on an error and scored on a Ferguson single, Butler reached on a bunt and Bonnette singled in Ferguson.