Selma Pre-Major All-Stars coach James Roberts wished he could have saved some hits from the 14-4 six-inning victory Friday over Thomasville.

They didn’t show up Saturday, as Selma dropped a 6-1 contest to Auburn in the round-robin South State tournament The South State winner advances to the state tournament against the North champion. Today’s final games will determine based on a series of tiebreakers.

Selma played Grove Hill late Saturday and the final results were not available before presstime. Selma returns to Thomasville today to meet Auburn at 2 p.m. Losing obviously hurts Selma’s chances of getting to a tiebreaker. Only getting four hits hurt Selma’s chances of beating Auburn.

“I knew we weren’t going to win the game with only one run,” Roberts said. “But that was the best five innings of baseball I have seen in a long time.”

Selma held a 1-0 lead before Auburn batted in the bottom of the fifth inning. Michael Perryman scored Selma’s lone run in the second inning when he reached on a fielder’s choice, went to second base after Cobb Bostick’s base-on-balls, took third when Juston Moreland reached on an error and scored on a passed ball.

Then the wheels came off.

Auburn’s fifth-inning action went single, fielder’s choice (first out), fielder’s choice that was bobbled, single, triple, single and sacrifice fly (second out). A groundout to third baseman Joel Yarbrough ended the inning, but Selma’s offense was deflated.

The Dallas County visitors managed only two hits in the last five innings.

“The way we were hitting yesterday, we couldn’t hit anything today,” Roberts said. “We had our chances.”

Yarbrough was the only Selma player with two hits, both singles. Craige Price and Wilbert McConico each added a single.

One key was Selma left four players on base in the last three innings.

“We couldn’t get any timely hitting,” Roberts said. “Auburn is good; we knew they would be.”

After Auburn took the 5-1 lead, Selma had only two more chances to bat.

John Pomeroy, who pitched the first 4 1/3 innings, was charged with the loss. Going into the fifth inning, he had given up two hits and two walks. He also snared a fly ball intended as a sacrifice bunt to start a double play.

In the end, he gave up four earned runs on six hits with two strikeouts and four walks.

Pate Howard, who threw the final 2 1/3 innings, got the victory with two hits, four strikeouts and three walks.