We are down to the final four! We lost two more teams on Wednesday's elimination day, and that leaves us with four teams remaining to claim the title of the top baseball program in 2016. Pitching made a strong comeback on Wednesday, and Thursday is looking like a wonderful day for fans of Division II baseball.
Game Nine
Cal Poly Pomona - 3
Central Missouri - 0
W: Bayer (2-2); L: D'Armas (5-3); S: Alsworth (8)
Box Score
Wednesday started with the best pitching performance of the tournament thus far being twirled by Pomona's Peter Bayer. Bayer held one of the best hitting teams in the country without a hit through 7.2 innings, and ended his day with eight shutout innings, one hit allowed, three walks and 14 strikeouts.
He got all the support he would need in the first inning, when the Broncos put a whole one run up on the board. Jared James led off the bottom of the first with a single, moved to second on a sacrifice, and came in to score on a Jason Padlo RBI double to go up 1-0.
The final two runs of the game came across in the bottom of the eighth when Nic Hernandez hit a two-RBI single down the right field line to give more than enough cushion for Ryan Alsworth to nail down his eighth save of the year in the 3-0 victory.
Game Ten
Lander - 4
Southern Indiana - 2
W: Waite (6-2); L: Partain (3-1); S: White (14)
Box Score
Although not quite the pitching performance from the first game, another pair of latter-half starters turned in solid performances for both teams in this contest. JD Waite earned the victory with 6.1 innings of two-run ball with two strikeouts, while Chase Partain allowed only five hits (but four runs and four walks) with seven strikeouts to take the loss and send USI back to Evansville. The 2014 national champions saw their tournament come to an end despite out-hitting the Bearcats 10-5 in the game.
Both teams exchanged single tallies in the second inning, with Lander getting on the board first via a Will Jones RBI single, but USI responded with an Andrew Cope RBI double in the bottom half to tie the game 1-1.
Lander took the lead for good in the top of the fourth. After Thomas Berry and John Mangum were both hit by pitches to start the inning, they moved to second and third after a sacrifice bunt, and Berry scored on another Jones RBI single. Mangum and Jones then came in to scored when Gatlin Minick hit a two-RBI single in to right field to make it a 4-1 game.
USI got one back in the bottom of the fifth on a Kyle Kempf RBI single, but that was all the Screaming Eagles could muster in the final half of the contest. The game was capped with Brandon White striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth to keep Lander's season alive.
Game Eleven
Cal Poly Pomona (42-18) vs Nova Southeastern (41-16)
Thursday, June 2nd, 3:00 p.m.
Live Stats
Live Video
Thursday's games will get us back in to the possibility of seeing aces back on the mound, and if that happens, it is anyone's guess as to who might win.
NSU certainly found their hitting stroke in their last game, but CPP is going to be playing with their backs against the wall. If CPP can get a victory in this game, the same two teams will face off on Friday for the right to advance to championship Saturday. I won't even pretend to guess who has the advantage in this one.
Game Twelve
Lander (44-15) vs Millersville (52-5)
Thursday, June 2nd, 7:00 p.m.
Live Stats
Live Video
The same goes for this game. If Brandon Miller is able to come back for Millersville in this contest (I don't think he will unless it goes to a game two on Friday), that could be all she wrote for Lander. However, just like the game above, Lander is going to have their backs against the wall in a win-or-go-home scenario, and it wouldn't shock me to see them rally around that and force a Friday game.
One thing is for certain - it will be a stellar baseball doubleheader going down on Thursday. I do think we are left with the best four teams in the tournament remaining, although you couldn't go wrong with many combinations of what we started the week with.
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