By River States Conference
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (BRACKET) -- The River States Conference Baseball Tournament has reached the championship round after the completion of three games on Saturday, May 5, the third day of the tournament. No. 2 seed Point Park (Pa.) University (44-7) and No. 1 IU Southeast (40-11) will meet in the finals on Sunday, May 6 starting at 11 a.m.
Saturday's action began with Point Park and IU Southeast meeting in the winner's bracket final. Point Park came out on top with a 4-1 victory, which advanced the Pioneers undefeated to the championship round. IU Southeast battled back to the finals with Saturday's night's 13-2 victory over No. 5 seed Midway (Ky.) University (26-24). The middle game of the day had Midway rally with five runs in the top of the ninth to beat No. 4 IU Kokomo (31-21-1) in an elimination game, 5-4.
NO. 2 POINT PARK 4, NO. 1 IU SOUTHEAST 1
Cole Horew (SO/Pittsburgh, Pa.) pitched 6.0 innings and gave up only one run, and Addison Domingo (SR/Carlsbad, Calif.) backed that up with three scoreless innings to provide No. 2 seed Point Park (44-7) with the pitching needed to beat No. 1 seed IU Southeast by a score of 4-1. Horew got the victory to improve to 4-1, and he limited the Grenadiers to five hits.
Domingo notched a three-inning save and gave up only three hits in that span to earn his 10th save of the year. IU Southeast brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, but Domingo closed it out.
Point Park got 10 hits with Reynaldo Adames (SR/Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) going 3 for 4 with two stolen bases and Richard Perez (SR/Valencia, Venezuela) going 2 for 5 with two RBIs. Perez drove in a run in the first inning and then again in the seventh to up the lead to 3-1. The Pioneers scored single runs in four separate innings to build on the scoreboard.
Ryne Underwood pitched 6.2 innings and gave up eight hits to take the loss. He battled throught some jams and limited the damage to three runs while picking up eight strikeouts. He handed a 3-1 deficit over to the bullpen. IU Southeast totaled eight hits with Jordan Branz coming in at 3 for 4 with a double.
With the victory, Point Park advanced to the championship round and would await the winner of the loser's bracket.
NO. 5 MIDWAY 5, NO. 4 IU KOKOMO 4
Midway rallied for five runs in the top of the ninth to eliminate IU Kokomo and survive in the loser's bracket. The Eagles trailed, 2-0, when they came to bat in the top half of the ninth. But they took advantage of two big errors with three big hits to built a 5-2 lead.
Carlose Cespedes doubled, and that was followed by a walk to load the bases with one out. Then Danny Maguire delivered a two-run single to tie things up at 2-2. An infield error allowed two go-ahead runs to come home, the second of which came with some opportunistic base running. Barrett Croslin tacked on an RBI single for a 5-2 lead.
IU Kokomo loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the ninth and got to within 5-4 thanks to a sacrfice fly by Noah Darr and an RBI groundout by Noah Etchison. But Croslin closed out the game to earn the save and keep the Eagles alive in the tournament.
Mark Taylor pitched 8.0 innings to get the win. He gave up only five hits, two of which were solo homers to Jared Heard and Kody Bledsoe. Taylor struck out nine and walked just one. Noah Richardson took the loss in 8.1 innings for IU Kokomo. He walked seven and gave up six hits although only one of the four runs charged to him was earned.
Midway advanced to play IU Southeast later that night for the right to move on to the championship round.
NO. 1 IU SOUTHEAST 13, NO. 5 MIDWAY 2
The Grenadiers got back to the championship round with a big win over Midway. IU Southeast broke the game open in the middle innings and steadily added to the scoreboard from that point on.
IU Southeast erased a 2-1 deficit with Richard Rodriguez's two-run double in the fourth to make the score 3-2. The Grenadiers made their big move with a five-run fifth, which got jump-started by Nicholas Lugo's solo homer to leadoff. Later in the inning, Drew Hensley delivered a pinch-hit, three-run double to make the score 7-2. Nolan Rogers added on with an RBI single.
Other big hits to come in the later innings were Tanner Leenknecht's two-run single and Tyler Warmath's two-run double.
John Cecil earned the victory in 5.0 innings of relief. He gave up only one hit, which came with two outs in the ninth. He did not allow a run, struck out four and walked none. Cecil came in the game with IU Southeast guarding a 3-2 lead, and he took it home the rest of the way.
Midway used five pitchers with Noah Merion taking loss in 2.2 innings of relief. IU Southeast drew 13 walks and tallied 11 hits. Cody Maloon led the hiiting with a 3-for-4 performance with four runs.
IU Southeast moved on to face Point Park in the championship round on Sunday at 11 a.m. IU Southeast needs two wins over the Pioneers for the conference championship.
