Prep Baseball Report is returning to Baldwin County to host the second-annual South Alabama Showdown to help kick off the season from Feb. 22-24, 2024.

Once again, the event will be hosted at the Sportsplexes in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach as well as Robertsdale High School. Other local squads featured in the 12-team event include Baldwin County, Bayside Academy, Daphne and Fairhope.

Teams from Faith Academy, Hartselle, Hueytown, Spain Park and Tuscaloosa County fill out the field of playoff contenders who will battle it out on Gulf Coast diamonds.

The schedule has five games set for Thursday, seven games on Friday and 10 games on Saturday. Four squads will come from the largest classification in Class 7A, five will represent Class 6A, two play in Class 4A and host Gulf Shores is the lone Class 5A member.

Before last year’s event could even finish, PBR Alabama Scouting Director Austin Sharp said everyone he talked to had good things to say and, at the moment, looked forward to hopefully returning.

“With great weather and playing at the beach, we had a good amount of positive feedback from the coaches,” Sharp said in a post-event interview on Feb. 27. “The host sites with Gulf Shores Sportsplex, Orange Beach Sportsplex and Robertsdale High School, all within about a 20-to-30-minute drive, it was set up perfect for us and what we wanted to do.”

Now with the 2024 event on the docket, more high-intensity games between top-tier programs are sure to provide baseball fans with entertainment.

“They want to play a tough schedule early on with how the playoffs work. It doesn't matter if you're 0-20 or 20-0 going into area play, they want to play the tough games early on in the season to prepare themselves for those area series,” Sharp said in February. “There were probably four or five walk-offs in that weekend so that kind of speaks to how close the matchups were throughout.”

Photos of the daily schedules for 2024’s South Alabama Showdown are included above. Be sure to follow @GCMSportsAL on social media for immediate updates and stay tuned to gulfcoastmedia.com/sports for full coverage.