LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. - The NC Wesleyan College baseball team suffered a heartbreaking 7-6 loss in 10 innings on Saturday afternoon to drop the second game of their rain-shortened series with USA South West Division foe, Covenant College.
This was the final game of the regular season for the 5th seeded Bishops, (22-14, 12-9 USAS) as they will next prepare to head down to LaGrange, Ga. for the Conference Tournament that begins next Thursday where they will take on 4th seeded Huntingdon College (Ala.) (22-14, 12-8) at 3:30 Pm at Point University's field. This is the first meeting of the year between the two teams as they did not play during the regular season.
Wesleyan got things going offensively with a big third inning as junior RF Moses Vigo led it off with a solo home run. Senior CF Cedrick Kornegay then followed that with a sacrifice fly scoring shortstop Alec Titmus, who had singled. Senior 1B Trey Croom then kept up his hot hitting smacking a two-run homer, his 7th, for a 4-0 Bishops lead.
Croom then extended the Bishops' lead in the 5th to 5-1 with an RBI single scoring Brad Pennington. After Covenant trimmed it to 5-4, senior LF Logan Andrews added another run for the Battling Bishops as he crushed his second home run in as many days to make it 6-4 heading to the ninth. Croom finished the day 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs while Pennington was 2 for 5 with two doubles and two runs scored. Croom finished the year hitting .373 with team-best in home runs, RBIs (39), and runs scored (39).
After a scoreless 8th inning from senior reliever Michael Smith, junior closer Noah Shrock (0-1) came on looking for the save but loaded the bases after two outs and Covenant then tied it up with a two-run single sending it to extras where they won it on a RBI single.
Starter Drew Tubb threw 5 solid innings allowing just 2 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks with 6 Ks while senior reliever Nate Gardner allowed 2 runs over 2 innings with 4 strikeouts.
More info on the tournament can be found here: https://usasouth.net/sports/bsb/2018-19/releases/20190410p6rhr0