BATON ROUGE, LA. – The Trojans not only won their first NCAA Regional game in school history Saturday; they scored more runs in the win than the previous three games combined.
Little Rock rolled past Rhode Island 22-10 Saturday afternoon in a Baton Rouge Regional elimination game held at Alex Box Stadium on the campus of host LSU.
In 2011, Little Rock (25-33) lost to Oregon State 7-4 and to Georgia 7-3 in the
Corvalis, Ore., Regional. In their first appearance in a Regional since then Friday night, the Trojans lost 7-0 to LSU.
"It means everything to me," said senior
Zach Henry, who collected 4 RBI Saturday. This is my last year, and I'm so grateful we made a regional, won a championship. I hope tomorrow's not our last game."
Little Rock will play Dallas Baptist at 2 p.m., Sunday in another elimination game. The Patriots lost to LSU 12-0 Saturday in the semifinals. The winner of Sunday's first game will play LSU in the championship game at 8 p.m., Sunday.
"This team, they keep doing firsts," Little Rock head coach
Chris Curry said. "We had an 8-0 streak that was a program first. We won the conference tournament. Now, we've got a regional win. You've got to get to regional to learn how to win a regional. Then you've got to get to a super to learn how to win a super. You've got to get to Omaha to learn how to win in Omaha.
"I'm just proud of these guys after a tough night last night against a really good team. I think it epitomizes who they've been all year, able to get off the mat, resilient, and come out today and do what they did, especially offensively. We knew that Rhode Island, who has a great ball club, especially offensively, one of the best offenses in the country -- we knew it was going to take some offense to hang with them and win. Thankful that we were able to keep adding on and then hang on. Proud of these guys."
Rhode Island (38-22), who had to play into the wee hours of Saturday morning because of weather delays during the Little Rock/LSU game Friday, tried to stay in the game.
The cut the lead to 8-7 in the bottom of the fourth, but Henry tripled home
Alex Seguine and Geck drove him home with a triple of his own to increase the lead to 10-7 in the fifth inning.
Little Rock led 12-8 in the seventh inning when
Angel Cano hit a towering three-run homer to give the Trojans a commanding 15-8 advantage.
"I was just trying to get a good pitch to put a bat on the ball," Cano said. "It happened. Just glad it happened. Just trying to help the team win."
It was 15-10 heading into the ninth inning when Little Rock added seven more runs.
Cano was 4-for-6 with 7 RBI.
Ty Rhoades and
Sammy Harris, who hit a solo home run, were 3-for-5 and Henry and
Seguine were both 3-for-6 and Geck added 3 RBI.
Jack Cline started the game on the mound but left in the second inning.
Hunter Royal and
Blake Van Cleve followed.
Brody Bunting, who picked up his second straight win, pitched the final 4.2 innings and scattered 4.2 hits with just two earned runs.
"We were obviously trying to find a way to slow their great offense down and handed the ball to Brody," he said. "He was a weekend starter earlier in the year. He's got really good stuff. We needed someone to just throw the ball over the plate and attack while our offense could create separation."
