WINCHESTER, Va. – No. 17 Shenandoah University has advanced to its third straight ODAC baseball championship thanks to a 7-4 win over Eastern Mennonite in game two of the best-of-three semi-final round series Saturday afternoon.
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Shenandoah (30-9) banged out 14 hits and held off a pesky Eastern Mennonite (9-15) ballclub to advance to next weekend's best-of-three championship series.
IN DEPTH
Leading 5-4 after EMU scored two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh, the Hornets pulled away with a
Henry Delavergne two-run shot in the eighth.
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Kyle Lisa, the third SU pitcher of the contest, then got the final six outs to close out the series. Lisa earned his second save by striking out two and allowing just one hit.
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Shenandoah took a lead it would not relinquish by jumping on the Royals for three runs on four hits in the third.
Frankie Ritter led off the frame with a solo shot to left, his eighth of the spring, before
Grant Thompson and
Colby Martin both singled.
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That brought
Keegan Woolford to the plate and the senior delivered with a double off the fence in right to bring both Thompson and Martin.
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In the sixth, SU scored two runs on a squeeze bunt and a balk.
Matt Moon got that squeeze bunt down, putting his bat on an up-and-in pitch to bring home
Kooper Anderson from third. Ritter, who then tripled, scored on the balk.
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Freshman
Reilly Owen (7-0) was the winning pitcher. He allowed three runs on six hits and two walks in 5.0 innings. He also struck out six.
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Thompson and Martin both had three hits with Delavergne and Woolford both driving in a pair.
NOTABLE
- The Hornets reached the 30-win mark for the fifth consecutive full season and the 10th time since 2009. SU has reached the plateau in every full season since 2009 with the exceptions of 2013 and 2015.
- The two home runs hit today ups Shenandoah's season total to 52. That ties the 2000 team for the most in a season in program history.
UP NEXT
Shenandoah will attempt to earn its third consecutive ODAC championship, and fifth overall, by taking on either second-seeded Lynchburg or No. 6 Bridgewater next week. Those two teams split their semi-final round opening games today.
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