Picayune is on the verge of its baseball season coming to an end.

Visiting East Central smacked the Maroon Tide 10-1 Thursday night in the opening game of the Class 5A South State playoffs second round best-of-three series. Game two is set for Hurley tonight at 6.

The teams were tied at 1-1 entering the second inning, but the Hornets broke the game open with a five spot in that stanza to take a commanding 6-1 lead. Picayune never threatened after that.

Peyton Lee, in his first action in almost three weeks while recovering from an injury, took the loss. Mark Wood was solid in relief for Picayune after replacing Lee in the second, before running out of gas in the sixth when the Hornets added four more runs to seal the win.

Konnor Pilkington picked up the win for East Central, limiting Picayune to just two hits over the first six frames.