Sunday, March 16, 2008

 

TUSCULUM, NEWBERRY SPLIT SAC BASEBALL PAIR, PIONEERS WIN SERIES

 

Matt Webb                GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Matt Webb drove in a pair of runs, including a walk-off sacrifice fly out in the seventh inning as the Tusculum College baseball team split a South Atlantic Conference doubleheader over Newberry College Sunday at Pioneer Park.

                The Indians won 6-5 in 12 innings in a resumption of Saturday’s halted game, while the Pioneers rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the final contest of the weekend series to win 4-3 thanks to Webb’s late inning heroics.  With Sunday’s victory, Tusculum (16-9, 7-7 SAC) claims the weekend series, 2-1 over the Indians (9-19, 3-9 SAC).

 

Game 1: Newberry 6, Tusculum 5 (12 innings – resumption of Saturday’s halted game)

                Casio Grider went 4-for-4 and Josh McElwee pitched three strong innings as Newberry defeated host Tusculum 6-5 in 12 innings.  With the victory, Newberry hands Tusculum its first home loss of the season, while ending a 16-game winning streak at home for the Pioneers.

                The game was halted Saturday night at the end of seven innings due to wet field conditions with the score tied at 3-3.

                In the top of the ninth, Newberry’s Thomas Berryhill led off with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt.  Grider singled home Berryhill from second base with the go ahead run.  Webb led off the TC half of the inning with a base hit.  With two outs and Webb still at first, Brandon Behenna hit a grounder to third base, but the throw was high, sailing to the right field corner, scoring Webb and allowing Behenna to move all the way to third.  But Newberry pitcher Stephen Byrd got out of the jam with a ground out to end the inning sending the game into extra frames tied at 4-4.

                The score would remain deadlock until the 12th inning when Phillip Bartz led off with an infield hit and later moved to third thanks to a sacrifice bunt and a ground out.  With two outs, Nick Martin reached on a throwing error, plating Bartz with the go ahead run.  Martin would also cross the plate on David Tustill’s RBI single as Newberry led 6-4.

                In the bottom of the 12th, Tusculum mounted a rally as Behenna and Christian Rosa drew walks to place the tying runs on base with one out.  Carlos Rivera reached on a fielder’s choice, with Rosa being tagged out at second.  But on the throw to put out Rivera sailed wide of first base, scoring Behenna from second.  But McElwee got Maikol Gonzalez to fly out to center to end the game.

                Both teams finished with 12 hits and four errors each in the contest, but the Pioneers left 16 runners on base, including three times with the bases loaded.

                Rosa went 4-for-6 in the game, including a pair of doubles and a triple.  Webb went 3-for-6, while Rivera and Dustin Morrow accounted for two hits each for the Pioneers.

                Newberry’s Jovan Rohena and Berryhill tallied two hits each.  McElwee improved his record to 1-4 as he went three innings, allowed a hit, an unearned run, walked two and struck out four.  TC reliever Rob Currie suffered the loss as he allowed two unearned runs in his inning of work.

 

Game 2: Tusculum 4, Newberry 3

                Rosa continued his torrid hitting pace going 3-for-4 with two runs and a double as Tusculum rallied to beat Newberry 4-3 in the series finale.  Tusculum plated a run in each of its final four at-bats, including the seventh as Webb drove home Rosa with his walk-off fly out.

                Gonzalez and Marc Hyndsman each went 2-for-3 at the plate as Tyler Manasa paced Newberry with his 3-for-4 effort.

                Newberry jumped out to a 2-0 lead, scoring a run in the first and third innings.  In the first, the Indians took advantage of a pair of errors to take the lead.  In the third, Manasa led off with a single and later scored on Tunstill’s one-out single to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.

                Tusculum plated a run in the fourth on a Behenna sacrifice fly and Gonzalez followed in the next inning with his two-out single to center to tie the game at 2-2.

                The Pioneers took their first lead of the day on Webb’s lead off home run to left field in the sixth inning to give TC a 3-2 advantage.

                In the seventh, Bartz drew a one-out walk, moved to second on a passed ball and scurried to third base on Manasa’s sharp hit to center.  With runners on the corners, Rohena laid down a bunt single, scoring Bartz from third with the tying run.  Manasa and Rohena pulled off a double steal to place runners in scoring position.  Following an intentional walk to Martin to load the bases, TC reliever Tio McLean got Tunstill to ground into an inning-ending double-play with the score tied 3-3.

                Rosa led off the bottom of the frame with a double to center field.  Rivera moved Rosa to third on his ground out.  Gonzalez was intentionally walked, but he would follow with a stolen base, placing runners at second and third with one out.  Following an intentional walk to Morrow to load the bases, Webb came up and lined a fly ball to right field.  Tyler Hartman’s throw to the plate was on line, but not in time to throw out the speedy Rosa as he slid head first with the winning score.

                McLean evened his record at 2-2, while Newberry’s Travis Howard suffered the loss (1-1).

 

                Rosa extends his hitting streak to 21 games as he batted 10-for-13 during the weekend series (.769).  On the week, he went 16-for-24 (.667) as the Pioneers have won five of their last six games.

 

                Tusculum continues its 12-game home-stand on Monday with a doubleheader against Caldwell College at 4 p.m.  Newberry returns home on Wednesday to host Augusta State University at 6 p.m.

 

- TC -