CARY, N.C. –The top-seeded Florida Southern used the long ball on their way to a 5-3 victory over No. 8 seed University of Southern Indiana on Saturday in the second game of the 2018 Division II Baseball Championship.
The championship is being held at the USA Baseball National Training Complex, and is being co-hosted by the Town of Cary and the University of Mount Olive.
From there, the Mocs rode the arm of Logan Browning to the win, which advances Florida Southern into a Sunday night winner’s bracket game.
Southern Indiana drops into the loser’s bracket, and will play on Sunday afternoon against Southern New Hampshire.
USI struck first in game two as Ethan Hunter singled down the third base line. He was then driven in by Jacob Fleming with an RBI-single to give the Screaming Eagles the early lead in the top of the third.
The Mocs answered back in the bottom of the fourth. Hayden Marze started off the inning earning first via a hit by pitch. Marze then stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error. Christian Maglich scored the tying run with an RBI-single to left.
A walk to Vaun Brown set up a three-run home run by Cody Burgess and FSC took a 4-1 lead.
Another Florida Southern home run in the fifth extended the lead to four.
Southern Indiana answered with a solo home run in the sixth to draw within three.
The final frame for the Screaming Eagles did see one more run scratch across but the comeback fell short for USI in the bottom of the ninth and Florida Southern shut the door to win game two.
Quotes
Florida Southern College
Head coach Lance Niekro
“The toughest decision was probably bringing (Browning) back after the rain delay. But hats off to all four starters in both rain delays today. All four starters came back after lengthy delays. To me that shows the impact of this situation and the desire that these guys have to go out there and compete.”
“The longer the rain delay went, the more we were wondering if we would bring him back. But Logan said he felt good and wanted the ball. He wanted to go back out there. A lot of that is gut feeling. It may not be the smartest thing to do to send him back out, but when someone asks for the ball and wants to go back out there, it’s hard to say no.”
Starting pitcher Logan Browning
“I was locating the fastball pretty well, and the change-up when I kept it down late was working pretty good. I know I got a couple of strikeouts on sliders, but mostly it was command of the fastball and then change-ups late.”
Outfielder Cody Burgess
“We don’t come into the game trying to win on the long ball, per se. It’s ended up happening more this year. … We were hitting BP here yesterday and the ball wasn’t really carrying, and we were thinking it would be a gap-to-gap approach – a lot of doubles and triples. We just found barrels and got two big home runs that won us the game.”
Southern Indiana University
Head coach Tracy Archuleta
“We let a couple of guys on and their leadoff hitter, Burgess, hit a ball out. That was the ball game. For us, striking up 14 times is way too many. We didn’t put enough pressure on them in at-bats, we swung at balls out of the zone late in counts. That was the difference.”
“The ball was carrying more than we’ve ever seen. They said they checked the bats too, so maybe they should have checked the balls. The ball was definitely flying more today.”
First baseman Nick Gobert
“Early on in the game we had our shots to get some guys in, but we swung at balls out of the zone and didn’t attack balls that we needed to. We gave them life back instead of us scoring first and putting extra pressure on them.”
Second baseman Jacob Fleming
“(FSC’s pitcher) was starting a lot of batters off with first-pitch curveballs and throwing them for strikes. When we’re looking first-pitch fastballs, it gets us off-balance. He was throwing change-ups late in counts, getting us to chase.”