Montgomery, AL - Columbus State got a complete-game pitching performance from Jarrett Coker and pounded out 15 hits in taking an 11-2 win over Southern Indiana at the Division II Baseball Championship. CSU advances to face Angelo State on Monday, while Southern Indiana will face Kutztown in a survival game.
"Our strategy against these teams that we basically know nothing about is to come out and play our game - our style - and see where that takes us," said CSU head coach Greg Appleton. "We knew they were a speed team and liked to run, so we wanted to try and keep their speed guys off base. We were able to slow them down by keeping them off base and our offense hitting it so well also slowed them down."
The Cougars got off to a good start in the first inning when Drew Candlin doubled home Kurt McKee and then came home on Brad Linton's RBI flop shot into right field for a 2-0 lead. CSU added a single run in the second when McKee's liner to left was gloved, but Brad Bowen - who had tripled to deep center to lead off the fram - came home on the play, despite the fact that the Screaming Eagles completed a double play as Jonnie Geiger was running on the pitch.
Coker (11-3) made that lead stand as he cruised, allowing just single runs in the fourth and eighth innings. He scattered six hits and fanned eight hitters in the game, and did not allow a walk.
"Jarrett going along so easy tonight, it was easy to leave him out there. If he had struggled, we would have made something happen quickly with our bullpen, but we didn't need to. He had it working and we felt comfortable letting him finish it out," said Appleton.
CSU broke the game open in the fourth with four runs. David Brown led off with a double and after an error on Trent Bianco's sacrifice, Bowen blasted his second extra-base hit to right-center - a double - to score Brown. After Geiger drew a walk, McKee blistered a shot down the third base line that cleared the bases to make it 7-1.
"Our approach at the plate all season has been to try and get the leadoff hitter on and work from there. We were able to do that almost every inning tonight and that allowed us to be aggressive," said shortstop Kurt McKee.
The Cougars would add two in the sixth on a Candlin double and added single runs in the seventh and eighth to cap the scoring. In all, CSU eight extra-base hits on the night. McKee, Candlin, Rutherford, Brown, Bowen and Geiger had two hits each for CSU.
CSU faces Angelo State on Monday at 7:30 in a battle of Saturday's winners. The Rams plated a whopping 10 runs in the 10th inning on Saturday afternoon to defeat Franklin Pierce 12-3.
Source: Columbus State University Sports Information
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment