The last teams standing in the Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 7A baseball tournament are the only teams from the state in the MaxPreps national rankings of the top 25 teams in the country this week.

State champion Bob Jones of Madison is ranked 19th and the team the Patriots beat in the best-of-three title series, Central-Phenix City, is ranked 20th.

Both coach Jared Smith’s Bob Jones squad and AJ Kehoe’s Red Devils moved up two places in the rankings from last week’s list.

Catholic-Baton Rouge of Louisiana is ranked No. 1 by MaxPreps, followed in the top 5 by Corona, Calif.; Tomball, Texas; Brother Rice of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; and Flower Mound, Texas.

Bob Jones finished the year at 44-9, a school record for victories, and claimed its first state championship. The Patriots earned the crown by beating Huntsville area foe Sparkman two straight in the first round of the playoffs. Bob Jones then topped Thompson in the quarterfinals, Madison City Schools rival James Clemens in the semifinals and Central – all in three-game series.

The Patriots won the first game of the championship series 6-2, lost Game 2 to Central 6-3 and took the title with a 12-5 win in Game 3.

Central finished 40-5 on the season and made its third consecutive trip to the state finals series. The Devils beat Hewitt-Trussville for the crown in three games in 2022 and fell to Vestavia Hills in three games last season.

To make the finals in 2024, Central beat Prattville in two straight in the opening round, topped Baker in three games in the quarterfinals and swept Auburn in the semifinals

No Alabama teams finished in the MaxPreps final baseball ranking in 2023 while Hartselle was No. 11 on the 2022 list.

The average price for a gallon of gas in Alabama went up 2.1 cents over the past week, up to an average of $3.17 as of Monday, according to GasBuddy‘s survey of 3,348 gas stations in Alabama.

That’s 3.6 cents a gallon lower than this time last month and 3.7 cents higher than this time last year.

Nationally, prices rose 1.2 cents over the past week, up to $3.56 a gallon as of Monday. The national average price of diesel fell 2.9 cents over the past week, down to $3.82 per gallon.

“With the summer driving season now under way, average gas prices have seen ups in some areas and downs in others,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “June tends to be a month of smooth sailing, where we see gas prices decline in most areas, and that’s a trend that looks the most likely for drivers, barring unexpected refinery snags or a tropical storm developing. The national average over Memorial Day was down ever so slightly compared to last year—after adjusting for inflation, prices were down about 10 cents per gallon.”

According to GasBuddy price reports:

• The cheapest gas station in Alabama was priced at $2.79 a gallon as of Sunday
• The most expensive gas station in Alabama was priced at $3.99 a gallon as of Sunday

Around Tuscaloosa, you can get gas as low as $2.84 a gallon. Check out where right here.

Welcome back. It’s a short work week, so we’d better get started. If you didn’t read yesterday, note that the answers and results from Friday’s quiz are there.

Dangerous storms

The storms that blew threw the state early yesterday knocked out power for some 137,000 Alabama Power customers and likely led to one death.

According to authorities, a woman in her late 70s in Mountain Brook was killed when a tree fell on her apartment. She was alone at the time, and no other injuries were reported. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.

Several thousand remained without power as of this recording, according to the Alabama Power outage map.

Attention pot enthusiasts

We may soon see the federal government reclassify marijuana. But, as Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reports, that would not affect state drug laws.

See, the FDA recently recommended that marijuana move from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. That move would reflect the FDA’s stated belief that the vast majority of weed users are not doing something that is dangerous to themselves or others.

So last month, the DEA proposed to reclassify marijuana to reflect a view of the drug as less dangerous that it’s currently treated. There are still a few steps left on the federal level before that happens. If it does, it’ll probably give those in the marijuana business some tax advantages, but it doesn’t legalize or decriminalize it in Alabama.

Here, possession can be a misdemeanor if law enforcement believes the marijuana is just for you, and a felony if not. Selling it can get you up to 20 years in prison, and selling it to a minor can get you up to 99.

A life saver

If you’re someone who’s been sitting out your colorectal cancer screenings or you’re wondering whether having a colonoscopy is worth the time, here are some numbers that came up in a story that might interest you.

AL.com’s Sarah-Whites Koditschek reported on free screenings for low-income and underinsured Jefferson County residents that are being given at UAB through a state grant.

UAB says that in the first year of the program, 100 colonoscopies were performed, mostly for low-income minority patients. Half of them resulted in removed polyps from the colon, and three of them resulted in the detection and treatment of early-stage cancer.

All three cancer cases were successfully treated.

In a state full of people who’d love a chance to play the lottery, 3% is a relatively sizeable portion, so make sure you start getting screened as you get into middle age.

The free screenings at UAB for patients of federally qualified health centers will be available through September.

Quoting

“We’re just a gritty group of girls that are gonna scratch and claw their way to a world series. And we did it.”

Alabama softball catcher Riley Valentine, in an ESPN interview after the Tide upset Tennessee in a super regional to reach the Women’s College World Series for the second straight year.

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Born on this date

In 1916, writer Walker Percy of Birmingham.

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