HICKORY, N.C. --- On the strength of four home
runs, No. 2 seed Tusculum College (37-12) advanced to the finals of
the 2008 Food Lion South Atlantic Conference Baseball Tournament
Championship with a 12-7 come-from-behind victory over top-seeded
Catawba College (36-15) Saturday afternoon at L.P. Frans
Stadium.
With the win, Tusculum advances to Sunday's SAC Tournament final
for a second straight year and third time in the last four years.
The Pioneers (37-12) will take on the winner of Saturday's
elimination final.
Tusculum's Sean Cotten (Mooresville, N.C.)
finished with three hits and four RBI, while Maikol
Gonzalez (Maracaibo, Venezuela) added four hits as the
Pioneers scored at least one run in each of the last six
innings.
Catawba got things going in the bottom of the first inning on
Craige Lyerly's (Salisbury, N.C./East Rowan HS)
two-run single.
After the Catawba Indians pushed the lead 4-0 with two runs in the
third inning, Tusculum reeled off nine straight runs aided by
two-run homers from Cotten, Matt Webb (Duluth,
Ga.) and Christian Rosa (Toa Baja, Puerto Rico) in
the fourth, sixth and seventh innings, respectively.
Catawba's David Thomas (Winston-Salem, N.C.), the
2008 SAC Player Of The Year, hit a two-run home run to cut the
margin to 9-6 in the bottom of the seventh, but Tusculum regained
control with two runs in the top of the eighth inning en route to
the win.
Thomas finished with four runs scored, while Lyerly drove in three
runs for Catawba, who will face the Carson-Newman-Wingate winner in
an elimination game at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
TC's Carlos Ortiz (Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico)
improved to 3-1 with the win in relief, while Catawba's
Travis McSweeney (Palm Harbor, Fla.) fell to 4-1
after suffering the loss.
Tio McLean (Laurel Hill, N.C.) picked up his
third save of the year for the Pioneers as he pitched the final 2
1/3 innings.
Tusculum pounded out 16 hits, including three hits by Rivera and a
3-for-3 effort from Marc Hyndsman (Oceansport,
N.J.).
Gonzalez's 4-for-6 showing, extends his hitting streak to 25
consecutive games, while Rosa has hit safely in his last 10.
- SAC -
