Box Score
Hattiesburg, MS-The Belhaven baseball team are the 2009 Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament champions after defeating the University of Mobile 3-2 in the title game Monday afternoon at Milton Wheeler Field on the campus of William Carey University. The Blazers (40-18) got two runs in the bottom of the ninth to complete the comeback victory over the Rams (34-23) and earn their first conference tournament title since 2004.
Mobile struck first win a run in the top of the second although an opportunity for a big inning passed by the boards thanks to some good pitching by Belhaven's
Joe Patterson. Brad Sheffield and Scott Mitchell got the Rams rolling with singles to begin the inning and each moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt by Nick Laico.
With runners on second and third and one out, Patterson issued a walk to Jared Baria and gave up an RBI single off the bat of Jay Wayne Smith scoring Sheffield from third. Patterson then buckled down and got Brandon Turner to pop out to second base and induced a ground out by Stephen Stork to end the inning leaving the bases loaded with Mobile holding a 1-0 advantge.
Nelson Curry kept the Blazer hitters off balance the entire night and cruised through the first four innings before surrendering a run in the bottom of the fifth. Like the Rams, Belhaven had a chance to record a big inning, but could only get a single run home after loading the bases with one out.
Shawn Diehl led off the frame with a walk and then went to third on a double to the gap in right center field by
Chanse Cooper.
Lake Eiland hit a ground ball to third and was thrown out with Deihl and Cooper unable to advance. The Rams then intentionally walked
Craig Westcott to load the bases with
Timmy Foster coming to the plate. Curry got Foster to hit a chopper to third but it was high enough to give Diehl time to cross the plate and knot the score at 1-1. Curry got out of the inning by getting another ground out to third this time by
Brent Hudson as Belhaven stranded runners at second and third.
The game didn't stay tied for long because the Rams quickly answered with another run in the top of the sixth inning. Patterson got Mitchell and Laico on fly outs to center field but gave up an infield single to Baria and a walk to Smith to put Baria in scoring position at second base. Turner then came through with a clutch single to center field chasing Baria home from second to give Mobile a 2-1 lead.
Chris Bennett was called upon to get the final out and did just with a ground out to second by Stork.
The score remained 2-1 heading into the bottom of the ninth with the Blazers needing a run to tie and two runs to win the game.
Brian McCormick stepped to the plate to begin the ninth and ripped a 3-1 pitch from Mobile reliever Dustin Lee, who had come into the game in the seventh, to left field for a base hit.
Mark Gray courtesy ran for McCormick and moved to second on a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt by Diehl to get the tying run into scoring position. Cooper followed with a single to left center, but Gray had to hold up and make sure that the ball wasn't going to be caught and had to stop at third.
With runners on the corners and one out, Eiland stepped to the dish and quickly fell behind in the count at 1-2. However, Eiland battled back and ripped a long fly ball to left as Gray scored from third on the sac fly and at that point the game was tied at 2-2. With Westcott at the plate, Lee uncorked a wild pitch as Cooper advanced to second base and suddenly the Blazers had the potential winning run in scoring position.
Instead of walking Westcott, Mobile decided to pitch to him and it was a costly mistake. Westcott calmly stood in and blasted a double off the base of the wall just to the left of center as Cooper easily scored the game winning run from third.
For the fourth consecutive game, Belhaven got solid pitching which was the key to their success in the tournament. Patterson, who pitched two innings of relief on Saturday, got the start and went the first 5.2 innings allowing two runs on six hits with four strikeouts. Bennett made his first appearance of the post season and made the most of it by firing the final 3.1 innings to earn the win in relief and go to 3-0 in 2009. Bennett held to Rams to just two hits and worked around a leadoff double by Carlos Romero in the seventh to prevent Mobile from adding to their lead.
Curry pitched the first six innings and allowed only one run on two hits. Lee suffered his first loss of the season as he was responsible for the final two runs of the game and falls to 2-1 on the year.
Offensively, Westcott and Cooper led the Blazers in hits with two apiece while Eiland, Westcott, and Foster each had an RBI. For Westcott it was his 63rd RBI of the season with Eiland collecting number 49 and Foster raising his run batted in total to 58. Turner and Smith recorded the only RBI's for the Rams and Smith and Sheffield led the Mobile offense in hits with two apiece.
Belhaven, having won the GCAC Tournament gets an automatic bid to the opening round of the NAIA national tournament which will be held at nine different sites around the country May 12
th through the 15th. The final top 25 poll, the schools that make the 45 team field and the sites that each team will be playing at are scheduled to be announced on Friday afternoon. When the information is released with the Blazers opponent and site, it will be posted on the Belhaven Athletics website which is blazers.belhaven.edu. All the play-by-play action of Belhaven's opening round games can be heard via Stretch Internet through the Belhaven Athletics website.
