MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- After losing for the first time in the NJCAA Region 24A tournament on Friday, 4-3 to Lake Land, the Wabash Valley baseball team certainly did not act like a down-and-out team pushed to the brink of elimination.
Instead, the third-ranked Warriors rebounded in a big way, pounding Lincoln Trail, 13-3 in six innings, to remain in contention as the tournament enters its' final day on Saturday.
Aaron Biddle's team still faces a daunting task – they must defeat Lake Land in back-to-back games to earn the crown and a berth in next weekend's NJCAA Midwest District tournament in Iowa.
The first game begins at 12 noon CDT. You can watch the live stream, with Mark Richison on the call, here:
If the Warriors win to force a winner-take-all game, you can use that same link to watch.
The Lakers (23-32 overall but more importantly, 2-0 in tournament play) jumped to an early 3-0 lead, scoring two runs in the first inning and one in the second. WVC (48-11 and 1-1) came back to tie the game, with two runs in the second and one in the fifth, but a Laker tally in the top of the ninth put the visitors over the top.
It was a tense game full of scoring opportunities for both teams, and at times stellar pitching and defense to get teams off the hook. Wabash Valley starting pitcher Agnel Miranda worked a little magic to get out of a two-on, nobody out jam in the fifth.
The Lakers had bright spots, too. The visitors' bullpen set the Warriors down in order in the sixth and seventh, kept them off the board in the eighth despite the first two batters reaching, and then snared a ninth-inning rocket at third that could have been a game-winner that instead ended it.
Richard Bonomolo, Jr., Daniel Contreras, and Luke Evans each had two hits for the Warriors.
On the hill, Miranda struck out 10 Lakers in six innings of work. Reliever Luke Leverton went the rest of the way and took the loss. He is now 4-3 on the year.
The Warriors had to immediately gear up for the next game against Lincoln Trail (33-18), a team which had lost on Thursday but had since bounced back to win earlier on Friday.
Mack Mitchell came up big against the Statesmen, with five RBIs in a 2-for-4 game at the plate. He hit a grand slam home run in the fourth inning, the largest chunk of a six-run frame that put the Warriors ahead, 9-0. It was Mitchell's fourth homer of the year.
WVC scored single runs in the second, third, and fifth, then added four more in the sixth. Bonomolo ended the game with an RBI double in the sixth that pushed the final margin to 10 runs.
Mitchell, Jorge Rodriguez, and Luke Odden each finished with two hits.
Freshman pitcher Jackson Soucie came through with one of the top pitching performances of the year, especially considering the do-or-die circumstances. Soucie, a lefthander from Cambridge, Ontario, Canda, retired the first 10 batters he faced and finished with an uber-impressive 4 2/3 inning stint of no-hit baseball. He struck out five, walked three, and got the win – his first decision of the season.
Lincoln Trail scored two runs against him in the fifth.
Cade Schneider worked the final 1 1/3. He was touched for a run as well, but picked up the save, his second.
The early end to the game enabled several Warrior players to head across campus to Spencer Sports Center for the graduation program. They got there 15 minutes after the start, red graduation togas mostly covering up their uniforms, but still in plenty of time to walk across the stage to receive diplomas.
The Laker win over the Warriors evened the season series between the two, at 2-2.