SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The No. 3-seeded William Woods University baseball team fell to No. 2-seeded Lyon College 4-3 in the second round of the AMC tournament on Friday night, giving them its first loss in the double elimination tournament.
The Owls (36-11; 19-7 AMC), despite outhitting the Scots 10-6 in the game, dropped a hard fought game and will now have to fight its way through the losers bracket to bring home its second consecutive tournament title. WWU will now face up with William Baptist College for a 11:00 a.m first pitch.
It was Lyon College who struck first, in the bottom of the second inning, after a lead off walk to Joseph Sitzman, as he advanced to second on a stolen base and third base on a pass ball. Isaac Struense came up to the plate and singled to shallow right-center, giving the Scots the early 1-0 lead. Next batter, Joe Campbell drove in the second run for Lyon with a single to right field, extending LC lead to 2-0 over the Owls.
After another slow start offensively for WWU, the Owls got one run back in the top of the fifth, as
Jordan Dey led off with a single to left-center, and on a pass ball moved up 90 feet putting himself in scoring position for William Woods. Then Owls lead off batter,
Larry Price drove in the teams first run, with an RBI single up the middle, making the score 2-1.
Later in the inning,
Nick Spagnola singled between second and first, to put runners on first and second base for the Owls, then WWU would tie the game up at 2-2 with an RBI single off the bat of
Dustin Kremer.
The game remained tied for the next two innings after tough defense and pitching from both teams, however, Lyon was able to push two runs across in the bottom of the eighth, to retake the lead and give the Scots the momentum going into the last inning of the match-up.
Going into the Owls last chance to advance to the third round of the tournament, the Lyon's relieving pitcher Tyler Tognarine was able to shut down the red hot offensive from the Owls, but before
Jordan Dey was able to cross the plate to get within one of the Scots, as he scored off a Lyon defensive error. The Owls had the tying run on second with two outs, but Tognarine was able to get Spagnola to fly-out to right and secure the win for the Scots.
Offensively the Owls had four batters collect a pair of hits, including Price, Spagnola, Stewart and Dey. Price led the way going 2-for-5 from the plate and drove in two RBI's.
James Ball would suffer the loss, as the senior gave up three hits and two earned errors.
If the Owls would win the first game of the day they would play again at 8:00 p.m., against an opponent that is TBA.
Fans check back on wwuowls.com tomorrow afternoon for full updates on the Owls baseball team.
