This past weekend, Rhodes Baseball took on Birmingham-Southern in the opening round of the SAA tournament. The winner of these games would advance to the semifinals of the SAA championship in Danville, Kentucky.
After a 12-1 victory in Birmingham on Friday, the Lynx took it to game 2, where they hoped to sweep the Panthers and advance to the next round.
Ben Daniel started on the mound for the Lynx, Mick Arney relieved for an impressive 6 innings with only 2 hits and 3 strikeouts, and Thomas LeMaster closed the game and earned the win. LeMaster is now 6-0 on the season.
The bats were quiet in this game until the bottom of the 3rd, where Birmingham-Southern finally got on the board from single to drive in a run. Later on in the inning, BSC singled again to the left side to drive in two more runs. Going into the top of the 4th, the Lynx were down 3-0.
The Lynx did not find the bag until the top of the 7th, where Malcolm Rohlfing singled to the left side to advance Quin Blackman to the bag. The Lynx would shrink the BSC lead again in the top of the 8th when Eli Selby singled through the right to score Myles Kruger.
When the game got down to the wire, in the top of the 9th, Corbin Kinder came up huge in the clutch, singling down the infield line to score Cooper Kuriger and Charlie Meyer. Now, going into the bottom of the 9th with a chance to secure the series, the Lynx were up 4-3.
With no outs down and one man on base, BSC batter Andrew Dutton grounded into a double play, putting out Eli Steadman. With one out remaining to emerge victorious in the series, Thomas LeMaster sent Jackson Webster down swinging. This sent the Lynx back to Memphis with a 4-3 clutch victory and a lot of momentum heading into the next round of the SAA championship tournament.
The Lynx now travel to Danville, where the remainder of the tournament will be played out. The Lynx are now the third seed and will take on the second-seeded Hendrix Warriors. This semifinal game will be Thursday, May 2nd, and the first pitch will be at 1 p.m.