BATON ROUGE, LA. – Two weeks ago, the Trojan baseball season almost ended before the postseason began. Now, Little Rock (26-33) is playing in the Baton Rouge Regional Final game.
The No. 4-seeded Trojans held on to beat No. 2 seed Dallas Baptist, 8-6, Sunday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium on the campus of Regional Host LSU.
"I was thinking in the ninth inning how we were percentage points away from not making our conference tournament, which would have broken a streak for us as a program because we always at a minimum make the tournament, and that's important to us and a team goal," Little Rock head coach
Chris Curry said.
"Then we get in the tournament, get hot, and the Baton Rouge Regional pops up on ESPN, and we celebrate because we just wanted an opportunity to play on one of the biggest stages in college baseball. And then ran into a good team Game No. 1 and then won -- first game, which hasn't been done in program history."
Now, Little Rock must beat the No.6 overall seeded Tigers twice to win the Regional title and advance to next weekend's Super Regional. The teams square off Sunday night at 8:06 p.m. on ESPNU with Dave Neal and Ben McDonald on the call. If the Trojans beat LSU Sunday night a deciding game would be played at a time to be determined Monday.
"We have all the confidence in the world right now," said Trojans pitcher
Gage Haley, who drew the start on Sunday. "It feels like we aren't missing any mistake that the pitchers throw when our team is in the box. And the pitches that have gone out there, they're doing their job, filling up the zone, and getting the job done. We're comfortable, we're relaxed, and we have a lot of confidence right now."
The Trojans fell to LSU, 7-0, Friday night in a game that was originally supposed to begin at 2:06 p.m. but didn't start until 7:36 p.m. Tigers star pitcher Anthony Eyanson held the potent Trojans offense in check. The Tigers used ace Kade Anderson in the semifinals against DBU Saturday night so Little Rock won't see either of pitchers, who are both highly touted Major League prospects.
Taking care of Dallas Baptist (41-18) Sunday wasn't easy, but Little Rock led for much of the game.
The Patriots had a runner on and a 2-0 count when reliever
Blake Van Cleve entered the game for
Zach Busick. Van Cleve struck out Chayton Krauss and then Ben Tryon hit a bullet right at Trojans first baseman
Angel Cano who caught it and dove to the bag doubling off Tom Poole, who was hit by a pitch.
Ty Rhoades gave the Trojans the initial lead with a three-run homer in the first inning. DBU cut the lead to 3-2 in the in the second inning and took the lead, 4-3 in the fourth.
However, in the bottom half of the frame, Little Rock responded when Cano homered for the second day in a row – a two-run bomb – followed by a solo shot by
Reed Willbanks, who went yard for the second time this year and Little Rock led 6-4.
Zach Henry made it 7-4 in the fifth inning and Little Rock scored its final run of the game in the sixth inning on an error.
Busick picked up the win pitching four innings and give up just two earned runs on three hits. He also struck out 3 and walked 3.
Haley pitched 3.1 innings and gave up 4 earned runs while scattering 5 hits and walking 2 with 2 strikeouts.
"I went to bed last night preparing to start because I knew it was between me and a couple other pitchers," Haley said. "Got in the elevator this morning and was with Coach Curry and his family, and he said, 'Gage, you're starting.'
"And I was ready to go. That's about it. Got locked in, had a good breakfast, and got to the field and was ready to go."
