For the second week in a row, Tallulah Academy will have to come from behind in a baseball playoff series.

Jacob Sessions pitched 6 2/3 innings and hit an RBI triple, and Brayden Ready homered as Wilkinson County Christian Academy beat Tallulah Academy 8-5 in Game 1 of the MAIS Class 2A semifinals on Tuesday.

Game 2 is Tuesday at 5 p.m. at WCCA in Woodville. Tallulah (22-10) will need to win that game, and Game 3 on Friday, to advance to the state championship series for the third time in four years.

It’s the same path Tallulah took last week, when it dropped the opener of its series against Briarfield Academy and then won the next two games.

Wilkinson County Christian (14-6) was in command from the beginning in Game 1 on Tuesday. Tucker Freeman hit the first pitch of the game for a double, and he scored on Sessions’ two-out triple. Sessions then scored on a single by Jack Orgeron for a 2-0 lead.

In the second inning, Ready led off with a home run over the left field fence to make it 3-0. The Rams added two insurance runs in the top of the sixth inning on a single by Freeman, and three more in the seventh blew it open.

Freeman finished 2-for-3 with two RBIs and one run scored. Orgeron had three hits, and Sessions was 2-for-4 with one RBI. Sessions also allowed four hits, six walks and five runs in 6 2/3 innings. He had seven strikeouts, and only gave up one run through the first six innings. He was pulled after running into trouble in the seventh.

Tallulah’s Gage Palmer had seven strikeouts and only walked one batter in seven innings, but he gave up 10 hits and eight runs — all of them earned. He also walked, singled, and scored a run on a ground out by Logan Hallmen in the fourth inning.

Tallulah mounted a comeback bid in the bottom of the seventh inning. J.T. McDaniel belted a three-run home run with two outs, and the next two batters walked. Tripp Gayle followed with an RBI single off of the reliever Ready to cut it to 8-5, but Palmer was picked off of second base for the final out.