KINGSPORT, Tenn.— The Montreat baseball team battled the No. 19 squad in the country for the second time in three days as the Cavaliers faced the Bryan College Lions in an elimination game at the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Tournament Friday morning. Although the Cavs knotted the contest late, the Lions walked off to win 5-4 and send the Cavaliers home with a 27-24 record.
Defense prevailed early in the contest as both teams eliminated baserunning threats with double plays within the first two frames. In the opening inning, the Cavaliers notched a pair of hits, but rolled into two outs, while
Tyler Best pitched a hitless initial two innings on the mound for Montreat.
Despite the defensive effort, Bryan utilized a free base, an error and an RBI groundout in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead. After a scoreless second, the Cavs responded thanks to a shot down the third base line off the bat of
Caleb Abshier that drove in
Zeb Marquis and leveled the score at one in the third. Abshier collected a pair of hits in his first two plate appearances to power the visitors out to a 5-0 advantage in hits.
The Lions (33-18) then broke through with their first two base knocks of the game in the ensuing half inning as back-to-back homers produced three runs that propelled the ranked squad ahead 4-1 through three.
Best gave Montreat a chance to comeback in the competition, holding the No. 19-ranked team to just four hits through six innings of work. The redshirt freshman allowed a pair of earned runs, striking out two Lions and walking three.
Isaac Castro played a vital role in the offensive production for the Cavaliers down the stretch. In the top of the seventh, the Miami, Fla. native scored
Will Cheek with a sacrifice fly to center, cutting the deficit to two.
Following a leadoff triple in the bottom of the seventh,
Joe Tomasello stranded the bases loaded with a massive strikeout that maintained the 2-run spread going into the last two frames. Tomasello ended his day by throwing two scoreless innings. He surrendered a mere one hit and fanned three batters during the outing.
In the ninth, a leadoff walk by Karis set the table for late-game heroics. With one out, Castro stepped up to the plate and blasted a game-tying home run to left field to bring the Cavs even with the Lions.
"We were in a tough spot after a bad loss yesterday and even down 4-1 in this one. We knew we weren't playing our best, but we fought back. If we played like this all year, I think we could've been top three in the conference," noted head coach
Jason Beck.
Though the Cavaliers fought back to tie the game at four, Bryan used a walk, a stolen base and a seeing-eye single through the left side to claim victory with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
Nine different Montreat players registered a hit in the matchup, while Marquis led the way thanks to his 3-for-5 performance. Morelos (2-4) and Abshier (2-5) joined the redshirt junior with multiple base knocks, and Castro drove in three of the team's four runs.
Overall, the Cavaliers outhit their opposition 13-6. Montreat tallied six 2-out knocks (6-11), as many hits with runners on base (6-18) and a pair of hits with runners in scoring position (2-9). Prior to the walk-off hit, Bryan was just 1-for-14 with runners on base, 1-for-9 with two outs and failed to record a hit with runners in scoring position (0-8).
With their 27-24 record for the 2023 season, the Cavs earned back-to-back winning campaigns for the first time since 2008-09.
"When you look at this season from the aerial view—the back-to-back winning seasons, the wins against top-25 teams—I think we've had a lot of growth and some great accomplishments. We're just young and need to work on consistency, but there's a lot of room for us to grow," concluded Beck.
