KINGSPORT, Tenn.— The Montreat baseball team began its postseason Wednesday afternoon at Hunter Wright Stadium in Kingsport, Tenn. as the sixth-seeded Cavaliers faced the No. 3 seed and No. 19 nationally ranked Bryan College Lions. Early offense as well as a special performance on the mound earned Montreat a 6-0 victory over the favored Lions as the Cavs improved to 27-22 on the season.
After a leadoff single down the right field line from
Zeb Marquis,
Tarik Latchmansingh brought Marquis around with an RBI single to the other side of the outfield to open the scoring in the initial half inning of the contest.
Daniel Wetmore then scored both Latchmansingh and
Norman Kelly with a double off the wall in left to extend the Cavs' advantage to three with two gone in the frame.
"After this past weekend, guys were a little bit down because they realized they didn't play to their potential, so getting out of the gates right away was something we knew we wanted to do," mentioned head coach
Jason Beck.
Daniel Willie held the Lions hitless into the third as the Ooltewah, Tenn. native got outs consistently. Despite surrendering his first hit of the matchup in the bottom of the third, Willie worked around two baserunners and kept Bryan at bay. Through his first 4.1 innings of action, he allowed only a single hit with five strikeouts.
Meanwhile, clutch hitting at the plate helped the Cavaliers expand their lead in the middle frames. Montreat, who went 6-for-10 in its first 10 at-bats with two outs, grabbed a pair of 2-out RBI hits in the away half of the fourth that brought the score to 5-0. Thanks to base knocks by
Caleb Abshier and Latchmansingh with runners on, the Cavs brought the gap to five halfway through the competition. To that point, the six seed outhit BC 4-1 with runners on base and 3-0 with runners in scoring position.
The Cavalier defense stood tall behind Willie as the graduate student forced Bryan to roll over the ball. Though the Lions put runners on in four of the first five innings, Montreat turned a trio of double plays as the lower seed maintained its edge on the scoreboard.
Kelly continued the team's impressive showing with two gone in frames as the outfielder from Decatur, Ga. launched his ninth home run of the year over the left field fence, giving the Cavs an insurance run in the seventh by bringing the score to 6-0.
Bryan (31-18) sprinkled seven baserunners over the nine frames; however, Willie shut down the Lions the remainder of the way. Willie struck out 11 batters, six looking, while retiring 13 of the final 14 he faced on the day. He gave up a mere three hits in his complete game shutout as he moved to 6-3 on the year and into third place in the NAIA in strikeouts (115).
"I knew that if we were able to get [Willie] a couple of runs early, we would be good. I can see it in his eyes. One of the best things about him is that even when he gets into a little bit of trouble, he regroups and comes back to it. He's one of the most prepared and mature pitchers I've ever coached," Beck said of his starting pitcher and his performance.
Offensively, the Cavaliers outhit the Lions 9-3, including seven base knocks with two outs (7-15). Bryan struggled to record hits against Willie resulting in a 2-9 showing with two outs, a 1-7 outing with runners on base and an 0-3 performance with runners in scoring position. Montreat went 4-for-15 and 3-for-11 in the latter two categories, respectively. Latchmansingh (2-4), Wetmore (2-4) and Marquis (2-5) all ended with multiple hits on the afternoon, while Latchmansingh and Wetmore each drove in two of the Cavs' six runs.
Baseball now plays the winner of the matchup between Reinhardt and Columbia International tomorrow at 4 p.m.
