FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - The NC Wesleyan College Baseball team routed rival Methodist University 19-7 on Sunday afternoon to clinch the East Division Crown and the right to host a 4-team conference playoff tournament bracket this coming week.
Wesleyan wins the East with a 17-4 conference mark and a 25-15 overall record. The Bishops racked up 22 hits on the game including 8 runs in the first inning on three-run homers from Zach Lyon and Tyson Bass. Lyon led the offense with a career-high six hits and 5 RBIs as he went 6 for 6 and fell a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. Lyon hit .643 in the series this weekend while hitting his third home run of the season and his now hitting .338 on the year with 39 RBIs and 40 runs scored.
The top seeded Bishops will now host West #4 seed Piedmont Univ. (Ga.) on Thursday at home at 12:00 pm while second seeded Huntingdon (AL) will battle 3rd seeded Pfeiffer from Bauer Field at 3:30 PM. Rest of schedule for Bracket 1 is below.
Along with the two home runs in the big first inning, Wesleyan also received RBI singles from junior catcher Jaiden Barker and outfielder Cord Butler. MU then scored three in the bottom half off senior starter Kevin Williams. Williams finished allowing 4 earned runs on 8 hits with 2 strikeouts over 3 plus innings.
Bass, with a team-leading 11 home runs, then drove in Barker on a sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning to make it 9-3 before MU scored three more in the bottom half of the third to make it 9-6 and knock Williams out of the game.
Freshman reliever Hunter Hill then came on in the fourth to relieve junior Clayton Gilmore after he allowed the seventh MU run on a double play grounder. Hill, however, would then go on to shut down the Monarchs over the rest of the game throwing 6 shutout innings allowing just three hits and walking four while striking out two to get the win improving to 2-0 on the season.
The Bishops then added to their 11-7 lead after four innings by scoring 4 runs in the 6th inning on a Javier Quintana RBI single, Butler RBI groundout, and Bass two-run single to make it 15-7. After an RBI single from Lyon in the 7th, junior 2B Davie Morgan then hit a solo homer in the 9th, his 7th of the year, followed by another RBI double from Lyon and a sac fly from CF Drifton Padgett.
The Bishops, as a team, hit .500 on the game with 6 extra-base hits including a triple and a home run from Morgan as well as a 4-hit game from senior 1B Travis Cross and a 3-hit game from 3B Quintana. All nine starters recorded at least one hit while seven registered a multi-hit game.
https://usasouth.net/sports/bsb/2021-22/releases/20220329jawksr
After the completion of the regular season today, the seeding for the 2022 USA South Baseball Tournament has been determined. The tournament consists of the top-four teams in each division in the Conference and is scheduled to begin on Thursday, May 5th with two four-team double-elimination tournaments hosted by the two top divisional seeds (N.C. Wesleyan and LaGrange).
The winners of the four-team tournaments will advance to the best-of-three championship series to take place the following weekend. That series will be hosted by the highest-remaining divisional seed. If the highest-remaining divisional seeds are the same numerical seed, the series will be hosted by the representative from the West Division based on a predetermined rotation.
Please visit the Tournament Website for up-to-date information, including the Tournament Bracket.
2022 USA South Baseball Tournament Schedule (all times ET)
Bracket #1 (Played at N.C. Wesleyan)
Thursday, May 5
Game 1: #4 West-Piedmont vs. #1 East-N.C. Wesleyan - 12:00pm
Game 2: #3 East-Pfeiffer vs. #2 West-Huntingdon - 45 minutes following Game 1 (approx. 3:45pm)
Friday, May 6
Game 3: Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2 - 9:00am
Game 4: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 - 30 minutes following Game 3 (est. 12:30pm)
Game 5: Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4 - 30 minutes following Game 4 (est. 4:00pm)
Saturday, May 7
Game 6: Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5 - 12:00pm
Game 7 (if necessary): Same teams as Game 6 - 30 minutes following Game 6 (est. 3:30pm)