West Nassau lost its high school baseball playoff game to Suwannee in only five innings. The Warriors were without a good chunk of their roster because of prom.
A majority of the upperclassmen on the team chose not to play.
The schedule-makers in the state of Florida failed their high school baseball athletes with this overlap. They should not be forced to make this decision in the first place!
West Nassau lost to Suwannee.
West Nassau High School enrolls approximately 1,000 students in Grades 9-12. It is located in Callahan, Florida in the northwesternmost corner of the state, just a few miles from the Georgia border.
The Warriors compete on the Class 3A level. They finished the regular season below .500 at 13-14.
However, their schedule was strong enough to sneak into the Florida high school baseball tournament as a No. 6 seed. The Regional Quarterfinals took place on Saturday night.
West Nassau paired with No. 3 seed Suwannee. The Bulldogs finished the regular season ranked No. 37 in the state at 16-11 and earned the right to host the first round of the playoffs in Live Oak, Florida.
It was a blowout.
Grayson Greene and Kyler Watson combined for 12 strikeouts against the Warriors. They struck out the last 10 batters of the game to advance to the second round. Suwannee won the game by a final score of 12-1 in only five innings. The game was called early on the 10-run mercy rule.
High school baseball playoffs overlapped with prom.
Although Suwannee is the better team this season and likely would’ve won anyway, West Nassau might’ve kept the score a little bit closer if it had its entire roster. The Warriors were down to only 15 players in total. Only two upperclassmen were in attendance.
The rest of the team chose not to play. They prioritized their senior prom over the playoffs.
Fisher Bennett was the best pitcher for West Nassau in 2026. He finished the regular season with a 0.94 ERA. He skipped the Regional Quarterfinal on Saturday to attend the school dance. As did a number of his teammates.
I don’t know the reason for their absence from the lineup. Perhaps they knew they were going to lose to the Bulldogs anyway. Maybe their parents encouraged them to pick prom over baseball. Maybe they made the decision for themselves.
This should not be an issue in the first place. Whomever is in charge of scheduling should’ve scheduled the game between West Nassau and Suwannee during the day to allow the players to play in the playoffs and attend prom. That is just poor planning. It was unfair to the Warriors.
But with that being said — speaking from my own experience — I would never choose to attend prom over a playoff baseball game. Not now. Not as a high schooler. Never.
High school prom is not a memory to which I assign a lot of value. I will never forget my high school playoff games. And it seems to me like the baseball players could’ve joined in on the afterparty for prom once the game was over. It was only a 90-minute drive home!
Instead, because of the bogus schedule, West Nassau lost 12-1 with only 15 players. Brutal.