LYNCHBURG, Va. – The No. 18 Shenandoah University baseball team plays its second game of the 2018 ODAC Baseball Championships Saturday night with a 7 p.m. contest versus Virginia Wesleyan.
The second-seeded Marlins, 28-12, advanced into the winner's bracket final with an 8-5 victory over third-seeded Roanoke Saturday afternoon.
Fourth-seeded Shenandoah, 32-10, got the win in the tournament's only game on Friday. SU downed the No. 1 seed, Randolph-Macon, 9-7.
The winner of tonight's game will have two chances beginning at 3:30 Sunday afternoon to claim the league's championship.
The Hornets and Marlins have split two meetings this season, with VWU rallying for a 6-5 win in 11 innings of the April 28 doubleheader before SU took game two, 7-5.
Junior Robert Klinchock got the start for Coach Kevin Anderson in that game and figures to be the starting pitcher this evening.
Klinchock, a left-hander, is 6-3 overall this season with 36 strikeouts and a 5.53 ERA in 57.0 innings pitched.
Shenandoah is hitting .333 as a team with Chase Smallwood leading the way at an ODAC-best .420.
Grant Thompson, Robert Marcelle, Keegan Woolford, Tristan Baker and Luke Nussman, like Smallwood All-ODAC honorees, are all hitting at least .340.
VWU is hitting .302 as a team with All-ODAC outfielder Brandon Kussmaul hitting .357.
Sophomore Jacob Pilarski, who is 11-0 on the season and a first team All-ODAC honoree, got the win this morning for the Marlins with 7 2/3 innings of work.
Chance Pauley, Jay Crusemire and Nick Bay have made a combined 25 starts on the mound behind Pilarski with Pauley 4-1, Bay 3-3 and Crusemire 2-3. Pauley has pitched the most innings – 78 1/3, and has fanned 45 batters with a 2.53 ERA during that time. He threw 7.0 innings of relief of Bay in the April 28 loss to the Hornets.
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