|
| Austin Singer had three hits for the Tigers and scored twice as the Tigers advance to play the Eagles of UW-La Crosse. Photo by Steve Frommell, d3photography.com |
By Pat Coleman
D3baseball.com
GRAND CHUTE, Wis. – Zack Speer struck out seven and scattered six hits over 7-2/3 innings and Trinity knocked out Emory starter Hans Hansen after two innings as the Tigers remained alive in the 2015 Division III World Series, defeating Emory 10-1 in an elimination game.
The Tigers scored in six of their eight innings at the plate and the Eagles never mounted a challenge against Speer, who improved to 8-2.
Speer worked quickly and kept the Eagles (31-15) off balance with a mixture of three pitches, primarily a 2-seam fastball he was locating well. And the Tigers staked him to an early lead.
Trinity (39-13) got the scoring started in the first, after two were out. Jeremy Wolf hit a ball through the hole at second, then Drew Butler reached down and lofted a fly ball into center field that kept carrying and got over the glove of a leaping Wes Peacock for a double to score Wolf. Carter McEachern followed with a liner up the middle past the reach of second baseman Dylan Eisner for a base hit to bring home the second run.
The Tigers used the hit-and-run in the second to add to their lead. Austin Singer led off with a single and broke for second as Nick Jewett grounded a ball through the hole left by the second baseman to put runners at the corners. No. 9 hitter Brody Fehmel followed by dumping an RBI single into left field. Connor Moore’s infield grounder made it 4-0 and Colin Serkowski smacked a single off the diving glove of Nick Chambers at short to push the lead to five.
Jewett successfully executed the hit-and-run in the third inning as well, bringing home the sixth run of the game. He added a solo homer in the seventh, finishing 3-for-5 with two RBI. “He’s a kid we’re real comfortable using (the hit-and-run with),” said Trinity coach Tim Scannell. “He’s strong through his hands – it gets him in a free hitting mindset. His hit-and-run usually result in the balls that you saw -- hard line drives that sometimes split gaps.”
Speer took those early runs and made them stand up. Emory loaded the bases with one out in the third, but Speer induced a groundball that cut down the lead runner at the plate. He struck out Wilson Morgan to end the threat.
“There’s no way to measure how big jumping out was,” said Scannell, “but it was the game and allowed Zack to settle in. It also allowed us to throw a ton more fastballs, and once he gets that two-seamer turning over, a lot of ground balls.”
“It makes my life a whole lot easier,” Speer said. “A couple times this year, for example in the conference tournament, it was a 1-1 game between me and a kind named [Layton] Tromba from Centenary. You’re really going to have to battle and then every better becomes the biggest deal in the world. Here, a guy gets a hit, you walk a guy, I hit a guy to lead off an inning – it’s real easy for me to just take the next batter one batter at a time, because if that guy does score, so what.”
Speer’s win was the 25th of his career, which put him past Tigers pitching coach Dave Smith and into first place in the Tigers’ record books.
“Obviously this game we didn’t play well,” said Emory coach Mike Twardoski. “We started off a little sluggish and that’s not this team. But I choose to forget about this game and worry about this season. ... I very much choose to remember what a fun-loving, talented team this is and how much of a pleasure it was to coach them.”
Hansen (3-3) gave up five runs, all earned, in two innings to take the loss. Trinity got three hits from Jewett, Austin Singer and Wolf, while Drew Butler and Connor McEachern had two apiece. Every starter got a hit for the Tigers.
Trinity stays alive and will play UW-La Crosse later Monday night. The Tigers need to beat UW-La Crosse twice to reach the championship series. If Trinity wins Monday night, the teams will play again on Tuesday.