TIFTON — The 2017 baseball season came to an end in the elite eight for the Tiftarea Academy Panthers last week and with it an outstanding year by a still young team.

Head coach Brad Porter said they were “extremely grateful” to advance so deep in the GISA Class AAA tournament.

The Panthers defeated Gatewood in a first round home sweep before traveling to Newnan to take on the Heritage Hawks in the second round.

Tiftarea had a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series after a 12-0 blowout, but a narrow loss 5-2 in game two was followed by an offensive showcase for Heritage.

Porter described the end as, “Disappointing, yes, but we won’t judge the season by one game.”

It was quite a year for Tiftarea, who rebounded from an 8-16 mark in 2016 to 21-8. There were plenty of high notes along the way.

For the second straight season, Dawson Patterson threw a no-hitter. Tiftarea defeated Valwood, 10-0, with Patterson pitching a complete game. In 2016, he combined with Bo Vickers to hold Southland hitless.

Patterson nearly threw another no-hitter earlier in the season. He gave up a late bloop single to Brooks County, a game that saw him strike out 17 batters.

Hunter Hartsfield had a team-leading six RBIs in a single game, when he batted in half of the Panthers’ total against Heritage in the opener.

Porter listed “maturity” as one of the ways the team has grown over the season.

“The kids have learned to practice as a higher level,” he said, adding that the squad began to believe in themselves more.

Tiftarea was quite balanced offensively.

Hartsfield surged at the end of the season to lead the squad with 30 RBIs, according to GameChanger statistics, but four others drove in 20 or more runs: McRay Lentz (20), Cain Cooper (22), Brandon Prudhomme (21) and Patterson (22). Grant Hall, Carter Stewart, Casen Royal and Anthony Brey all had more than 10 RBIs.

Prudhomme and Patterson each was credited with eight wins.

Remarkably, the Panthers will lose zero players to graduation.

“Every kid in the program returns,” he said.

The Panthers were scheduled to host a baseball banquet Tuesday. Further honors are expected to be announced next week when the league is scheduled to vote on All-Region and All-State.

With the weekend championship between John Milledge and Trinity Christian (Sharpsburg) ending the season, it would seem that it would close the book on Tiftarea as well.

It will not.

Tiftarea will play a handful of summer games at Valdosta next week, taking on teams such as Valdosta, Lowndes and Berrien and have a later contest scheduled against Irwin County. Porter said he was still looking for opponents.

“We’ll play anybody who wants to play.”

Several players will take to the road.

“A bunch of our kids are playing with travel teams anywhere from East Cobb to Fort Myers,” said Porter.