The Sealy Tigers are set for their bi-district meeting with Leland this Friday at 6 p.m. at Aubrey “Mutt” Stuessel Stadium in Sealy.

Earlier this week, the Tigers played a postseason warmup game at home against Fort Bend Kempner, which competes in Class 5A, and the hosts came out victorious 14-4.

Although the warmup game’s intensity won’t match the playoffs, Bennett said it was good to get live action in after two playoff warmup games were canceled at the end of last week due to rain.

“At the end of the game, I feel good with the outcome and the score,” Bennett said. “Kempner is second place in their 5A district with Richmond Foster and Fulshear so that tells us a little bit about what kind of baseball they’ve been having to play.”

Sealy secured the No. 3 seed from District 24-4A with a 7-3 mark and will play Leland, the second-place team from Houston’s District 23. Bennett said toward the end of the season, the key is momentum and he felt good about the vibes generated on the field Monday.

“It was basically a bullpen session for all five guys I threw and I thought all five guys did a good job of competing in the strike zone. We didn’t have a whole lot of walks tonight which is a big thing for us and something we preach,” Bennett said. “The most exciting thing for me was how we hit the baseball. Their coaching staff kept raving on our guys and about our approach and how we stepped in the batter’s box and that’s been an issue for us all year. I think we’re starting to hit the stride we need as it starts to get to games that are win or go home.”

However, as they get into this second season, only a pair of athletes on this year’s team were on the 2019 roster that was most recently in the playoffs after the 2020 postseason was canceled.

“Tyler (Hennessey) was the starting shortstop on that team that went three rounds and lost to Liberty Hill, then Rhys (Reichardt) was the Game 2 pitcher so they both have a lot of experience coming out of that season where we had some intense games,” Bennett said of the now-seniors. “I think them being able to reflect on that and coming back from football, that’s going to carry us throughout because we understand the intensity level is going to change.”

Bennett said the rest of the team can rely on their playoff experiences in other sports like football and basketball more recently.

“I have six seniors that have been in process, I have two juniors that have kind of been in the process and we have the experience that’s going to be able to work us there and obviously the experience we drew out of football this year helps, basketball helps, we have guys that are going to be ready for the moment,” Bennett said.

The first playoff moment will get to come on the Tigers’ home field where Bennett owns a 1-0 postseason record in his four years at the helm.

“I’m excited about giving our seniors and our fans another chance to see our guys here at our field in a game that means a lot,” Bennett said Monday. “We’re hoping the weather holds off tomorrow but for now, our field is in good shape. As long as the weather doesn’t do too much damage to us, we’ll have this field looking as good as it did on senior night so we’re ready to rock and roll.”

The head coach’s message for the rest of this week was “domination.”

“We talked about dominating the week, so we’re ready to dominate this week and bring home some gold gloves,” Bennett said.