Catawba Tops Tusculum In South Region Baseball Tournament

Catawba Tops Tusculum In South Region Baseball Tournament
May 16, 2008

TAMPA -- Catawba College's Alex Fairweather tossed a complete-game gem as the 17th-ranked Indians defeated No. 13 Tusculum College 5-1 in the winners' bracket semifinal of the NCAA Division II South Regional Baseball Tournament. Catawba (42-16), the No. 3 seed in the regional, will face top-seed Tampa at 11 a.m. in Saturday's winners' bracket final. The Pioneers (41-14) will face No. 5 seed Carson-Newman in an elimination game at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Fairweather (9-2) pitched his second complete game of the season as he scattered six hits, allowed one run, walked one and struck out six in the victory.

David Thomas, the South Atlantic Conference Player of the Year, went 3-for-4, including his 21st home run of the season.

Catawba got on the board first in the first inning when Thomas led off with a single, stole second and would later score on a two-out single by Craige Lyerly to take a 1-0 lead. Catawba would make it 3-0 in the second as Matt Kepley drew a one-out walk and would score on Thomas' two-run blast to center field.

Tusculum looked to have shifted the momentum in the fourth inning when Matt Webb reached on a one-out triple and crossed the plate on Sean Cotten's fly out to right field. But on the play, Catawba won an appeal to the third base umpire that Webb left the bag early, wiping the run off the board and ending the inning, one of three double plays the Pioneers would hit into on the night.

Tusculum starter Rob Currie (4-5) settled after the first two innings as he struck out the side in the third and retired eight straight batters to keep the Pioneers in the game. That streak would end though in the fifth when Jerry Sands hit his 24th home run of the season, a solo shot to right center field to increase Catawba's advantage to 4-0. Currie did bounce back to strike out the side for a second time on the night.

But Fairweather was very impressive as he retired 11 straight batters, including the side in order in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Catawba added to their lead in the sixth when Brett Hatley reached on an infield single and scored on a Bubba Morris double.

Trailing 5-0 heading into the ninth inning, Aaron Hudgins led off with a sharp hit up the middle and moved to third on Christian Rosa's double that landed on the warning track in left center. Hudgins would plate TC's lone run of the game on his RBI grounder to spoil the shutout. But Fairweather struck out two-time South Region Player of the Year Maikol Gonzalez and got Webb to line out to Thomas in center to end the game.

Currie tossed six innings, allowing five runs on six hits, three walks and posted six strikeouts. TC senior Morgan Tyson pitched two shutout innings of relief as he allowed a hit and struck out the side in the eighth inning.

The winner of the Tusculum/Carson-Newman game will face the loser of Saturday's Tampa/Catawba contest at 7 p.m. that evening. Tusculum defeated Carson-Newman on Thursday in a thrilling 8-7 contest in day one action of the NCAA Regional. It will mark the sixth time this season the two East Tennessee rivals have met this year.

#13 Tusculum vs #17 Catawba
May 16, 2008 at Tampa, Fla. (UT Baseball Field)

Tusculum 1 (41-14)

Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
Christian Rosa lf........ 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Carlos Rivera cf......... 4 0 1 1 0 0 3 0 0
Maikol Gonzalez 2b....... 4 0 0 0 0 1 3 1 0
Matt Webb rf............. 4 0 1 0 0 1 4 1 2
Sean Cotten 1b........... 2 0 0 0 1 1 3 0 0
Paul Finger 3b........... 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0
Payden Houser dh......... 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Matt Ford dh............ 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Marc Hyndsman c.......... 3 0 0 0 0 1 9 0 1
Aaron Hudgins ss......... 3 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 0
Rob Currie p............. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Morgan Tyson p.......... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Totals................... 30 1 6 1 1 6 24 5 3

Catawba 5 (42-16)

Player AB R H RBI BB SO PO A LOB
------------------------------------------------------
David Thomas cf.......... 4 2 3 2 0 1 2 0 0
Chad Baker 2b............ 4 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 0
Jerry Sands rf........... 4 1 1 1 0 0 2 1 1
Ryan Query c............. 3 0 0 0 1 3 7 1 0
Craige Lyerly 3b......... 4 0 1 1 0 2 3 3 0
Brett Hatley dh.......... 2 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
Kevin McMillan dh....... 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Chris Ahearn ss.......... 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3
Bubba Morris 1b.......... 3 0 1 1 0 0 12 0 0
Matt Kepley lf........... 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Zeb Link lf............. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Alex Fairweather p....... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Totals................... 30 5 7 5 3 9 27 14 4

Score by Innings R H E
-------------------------------------------
Tusculum............ 000 000 001 - 1 6 0
Catawba............. 120 011 00X - 5 7 0
-------------------------------------------

DP - Catawba 3. LOB - Tusculum 3; Catawba 4. 2B - C.Rosa; B.Morris. 3B -
M.Webb. HR - D.Thomas; J.Sands. SB - D.Thomas. CS - S.Cotten.

Tusculum IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP
--------------------------------------------------
Rob Currie.......... 6.0 6 5 5 3 6 23 26 109
Morgan Tyson........ 2.0 1 0 0 0 3 7 7 21

Catawba IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP
--------------------------------------------------
Alex Fairweather.... 9.0 6 1 1 1 6 30 31 112

Win - AFairweather (8-2). Loss - R.Currie (4-5). Save - None.
WP - R.Currie; AFairweather. Inherited runners/scored: None. Pitches/strikes:
R.Currie 109/66; M.Tyson 21/16; AFairweather 112/71.
Umpires - HP: Olindo Mattia 1B: Josh Reep 2B: Jeff Cox 3B: Joe Roebuck
Start: 7:15 pm Time: 2:08 Attendance: 108