Baseball | 5/22/2023 11:05:00 AM
MACU defeats Salem University 7-6 in a thriller at the USCAA National Tournament. Salem, a fully-funded D2 program, who has beaten MACU 2 times already this year with scores of 17-2 and 15-3. In game 1 of the tournament, Salem took it to MACU and was looking to do the same in game 3 of the tournament but MACU had a different idea.
Salem scored in each of the first 3 innings of the game but it was kept to a minimum by the likes of
Andrew Copeland,
Dakota Jacobsen and
Connor Wong. While using the, "Riding the hot hand" approach, Coach Louis stuck with
Connor Wong for 2.2 innings and got rewarded with him only giving up 2 hits and 0 runs during his time. Then
Deacon Etheridge recorded a massive out getting a pop up on 1 pitch to finish Connor's inning.
Jalyn Lee threw the last two innings earning the win where he gave up just 1 hit striking out 2 batters. MACU used 5 pitchers to complete the 7 inning game. Coach Louis said, "this was the gutsiest performance by our pitching staff all year"
MACU trailed the whole game. Everytime Salem scored MACU scored. Kept the game within striking distance the whole time. After the 5th inning, MACU trailed 6-4. In the bottom of the 6th inning, MACU gets runners on 2nd and 3rd and has no outs.
Josiah Collado and
Anthony Torres get out which leaves it up to
Alex Miller.
Alex Miller, down to his last strike hits a slow roller to the shortstop and beats the throw to 1st base. In doing this,
Elijah Ollman scores from 3rd and
Nick Boyle follows behind him making a heads up play catching the 1st baseman napping. "The whole stadium went crazy" Coach Louis said. Next guy up is
Riane Franklin, he lets the first pitch go by which allows
Alex Miller to steal 2nd base. "I figured, I would rather lose being aggressive than second guess myself if we lost" Then on the 0-2 pitch
Riane Franklin singles to center allowing Alex to score from second to take the lead 7-6.
"This was the biggest win in school history and there isn't even a question about it" said Coach Louis. People on the outside don't understand the magnitude of this victory. Playing a school that has 8 full scholarships compared to our 1.5 scholarships is an unfair advantage. They have more equipment, more players, more trainers, more everything. Yet, "THE GUYS" as Coach Louis calls them persevered and found a way to win a game like this. This game showed grit, heart and determination. Speaks volumes to what this program is all about.
