Box Score
Hattiesburg, MS-Belhaven's Craig Westcott etched his name into the history books on Friday night pitching the Blazers to a 7-0 victory over 22^nd ranked LSU-Shreveport in the second round of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament. Westcott struck out 14 batters and now has 121 K's on the season which eclipses the previous Belhaven single season record of 108 set by Josh Garrett in 2002. Belhaven improves to 38-18 overall while the Pilots drop to 40-13 in 2009.

                                

The Blazers got on the board with a run in the bottom of the second as Timmy Foster and Brent Hudson reached on walks to begin the inning. Following a fielder's choice by Charlie Edwards, Craig Dean drove in the first run with an RBI single to score Hudson giving Belhaven a 1-0 advantage.

 

Belhaven struck for two more runs in the bottom of the third on a pair of RBI doubles. Lake Eiland induced a walk from Turner Brasher to start the frame and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Westcott then helped himself when he drove the ball to the warning track in straight away center field chasing home Eiland from second base. Foster followed with a two bagger of his own on a line shot to left center to make the score 3-0 in favor of the Blazers.

 

Belhaven tallied a run for the third consecutive inning in the fourth thanks to another double by Eiland. Shawn Diehl got on base with a single, stole second and went to third on a fly ball by Chanse Cooper. Diehl then crossed the plate on Eiland's double and at that point the Blazers were up 4-0.  

 

The score stayed 4-0 until the bottom of the eighth when Belhaven tacked on three more insurance runs. The Pilots opened the door with a throwing error by the second baseman Andrew Blubaugh which allowed Diehl to reached first base safely. Cooper tripled home Diehl and the Blazers then put runners on the corners with one out after Westcott was intentionally walked.  Courtesy runner Mark Gray got in a run down between first and second allowing Cooper to score from third. Foster then capped the inning off with a solo home run over the left field fence to put the Blazers up 7-0.

 

Westcott closed the door in the ninth to complete the contest and secure the victory for Belhaven. Westcott held the LSU-Shreveport's explosive offense to four hits and walked just one in route to an 11-3 record on the mound. Westcott's fastball and slider kept the Pilot hitters off balance for the entire night as LSU-Shreveport was shutout for just the second time this season. On the other side of the ledger, Turner Brasher suffered the loss for the Pilots allowing four runs on five hits in 3.1 innings of work.

 

Foster led the Belhaven offense with two hits and 2 RBI's with one coming on his team leading 14 homer of the year. Dean also collected two hits and an RBI followed while Cooper, Eiland, and Westcott had one RBI apiece. Diehl joined Foster and Dean with a two hit night for the Blazers. Kyle Lawrence, Brandon Bravata, Andrew Brouillette, and Andrew Blubaugh each had singles accounting for the only four hits in the game by the Pilots.

 

The Blazers will return to action on Saturday night at 7 PM when they take on the winner of the LSU-Shreveport and William Carey elimination game which gets underway at Noon. The Crusaders were upset by the University of Mobile 9-6 in Friday's second game of the day while Spring Hill came from behind to beat Loyola University 12-11 in ten innings in game one on Friday to keep their season alive. Spring Hill will face Mobile in the 3:30 contest on Saturday afternoon at Milton Wheeler field. Of the five teams remaining in the tournament, Belhaven is the only team without a loss.  

 

All the play-by-play action of Belhaven's 7 PM contest can be heard via Stretch Internet through the Belhaven Athletics website beginning with the pregame show at 6:45.