The Story Behind the Clinch By John Kocsis Jr.
The Fireflies moved to Segra Park in 2016 and played their first game in Charleston April 7. After that, Columbia won their home opener April 14, 2016 vs the Greenville Drive. The Fireflies have had plenty of storybook moments and a few dozen players make the bigs, but until 2025, no Fireflies team had clinched a playoff berth.
Henry Ramos got things started with a tenth inning single June 10 to get the Fireflies a game closer. After that, Saturday, June 14, the Fireflies had a doubleheader where they were trailing entering the final frame in each game. In game one, Hyungchan Um roped a walk-off double to beat Kannapolis 5-4 in seven frames, which set the table for an exciting game two. In game two, the bases were loaded with two outs and a 3-2 pitch where Asbel Gonzalez got plunked to score the winning run for Columbia and to give them sole possession of first place for the first time in a few weeks. The Fireflies led the South Division for most of the first half. After a 15-8 April, Columbia led the division race until May 24, when a loss to Kannapolis sent the Fireflies to second for the first time since April 16. It took until that doubleheader June 14 for Columbia to reclaim first and ultimately clinch their first playoff berth in franchise history. It took the Fireflies 1,126 games to earn their first playoff berth and it is the city’s first professional baseball playoff berth since the Capital City Bombers clinched a spot in the 2004 South Atlantic League Playoffs. Now you can be a part of history. Tickets go on-sale to the general public for the 2025 post-season starting July 24 at noon. Fans can purchase those tickets at FirefliesTickets.com. If you don’t want to forget, you can join the Fireflies priority list, where members will get first access to tickets starting at 9 am July 24. You can join the priority playoff ticket list here .
This season, the Fireflies finished the first half 36-30, which was good enough to win the Carolina League South Division title. That earned the Fireflies a berth in the 2025 Carolina League playoffs, which is a best of three series. Columbia will play game one at the South Division Second Half Champion’s ballpark September 9 before coming home to play game two at Segra Park Thursday, September 11. If necessary, there will be a winner-take-all game three Friday, September 12 at Segra Park. The path to a post-season berth was bumpy at times for the Fireflies. Columbia was one of only a pair of teams in the South Division that was outscored by their opponents in the first half. The Fireflies were outscored 323-304 over the first 66 games of the season. The club finished with the ninth-best batting average in the 12- team Carolina League (.225) and had the eighth-best team ERA in the circuit (4.24). Despite some hiccups, the Fireflies held things together best in late and close scenarios. The Fireflies had the most saves in the first half (19) and also had 19 holds, which were good for fourth-most in the circuit. The team also took advantage of some extra home cooking in the first half. Columbia finished the first half 23-13 in 36 home games across the first 66 games of the season compared to a 13-17 record in 30 road contests during half number one. Pitching wasn’t the only way that Columbia came through in the clutch, six of Columbia’s 23 home wins (26%) were via the walk-off win. The Fireflies first walk- off win came April 22 when Stone Russell launched a 10th inning single to upend the Carolina Mudcats 12-11. The team had two additional walk-off winners in May, including a three-run homer from Ramon Ramirez that marked the Fireflies first walk-off homer in a pair of years, but the big clutch series came in June during the Fireflies last homestand of the first half. The Fireflies were locked in fourth place, two games behind the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, who happened to be visiting town. Columbia won five of the six games in that series, all by a single run, and they won three of them in walk-off fashion to vault from fourth to first place and to give them a magic number of two entering the final three games of the half.
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