LYNCHBURG, Va. – Jordan Watkins' fourth hit singled in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning and gave Lynchburg College a 6-5 win over Guilford College in Wednesday's opening round of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Baseball Tournament at City Stadium.
The second-seeded Hornets (23-13) advance to play Thursday night against the winner of Wednesday night's contest between Randolph-Macon College and Washington and Lee University. The fifth-seeded Quakers, making their first ODAC Tournament appearance since 2006, play Thursday morning at 11:00 a.m. against Hampden-Sydney College in the tourney's first elimination game. The Tigers lost to top-seeded Bridgewater College, 8-3, earlier Wednesday.
Guilford battled back from a 3-1 deficit and took a 5-4 lead in the sixth on Zach Montalbano's two-run double. The Hornets tied the game for the third and final time in the home seventh on Chris Colquhoun's two-out RBI single off of Guilford starter Will James.
The Quakers put runners at the corners with one out in the eighth inning, but reliever Lynchburg Bryan Breedlove retired Montalbano and Will Cornelius to keep the game tied. Breedlove put down Guilford in order in the ninth and gave way to Jared Millner (1-1), who yielded only a walk in three hitless and scoreless innings.
Guilford's Micah Winterstein and Sammy Stuart kept the Hornets at bay for four innings before the Brock Shifflett singled to lead off the 12th. Pinch-runner Brandon Garnett took second when Stuart (2-6) hit Colquhoun and one out later took third on Dan Savage's walk, which set up Watkins' winning hit, a single to right.
Watkins finished with two RBI in the game. Michael Walters had three hits for Lynchburg. Shifflett and Michael Del Buono added two hits apiece.
Bryan Bialecki's three hits paced the Quakers. Guilford's Kyle Wooden, who was named the ODAC's Player of the Year prior to the game's start, went two-for-four with two RBI. Montalbano also finished with two hits and two RBI.