College of Charleston
Western Carolina
WCU Beats CofC, 13-12
5/17/2008 4:00:00 AM | Baseball
Cullowhee, N.C. -- Reid Rollison's two-out double in the bottom of the ninth scored Ryan Mathews from first base and lifted Western Carolina to a wild 13-12 win over the College of Charleston in the Southern Conference regular season finale for both schools at Hennon Stadium on Saturday.
The Cougars, who stand at 36-19 overall and 18-9 in league play, missed a chance to capture its fourth regular-season league title in five seasons. A win by Charleston would have given them a share of the SoCon crown with Elon. The Cougars enter next week's Southern Conference Championship at Joe Riley Park as the No. 2 seed and will play either Davidson or Western Carolina at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Western Carolina improved to 28-26 and 14-13.
Rollison's game-winner capped a wild ninth inning. Charleston, which trailed 12-7 entering the ninth, got a RBI single from Stuart Haywood and a RBI double from Joash Brodin that cut WCU's lead to 12-9. With two on and two out, Brandon Sizemore belted a 2-2 pitch for a three-run homer to left that tied the game at 12-all.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Catamounts used a two-out rally to earn the win. Mathews bounced a single to center with two outs and raced home when Rollison lined a 3-2 pitch from Charleston relief pitcher Michael Kohn into the gap in left center for the game-winner.
Charleston, which got a two-run homer from Jeremie Tice in the first inning, rallied from an 11-2 deficit after the first inning. Tice's homer was his fifth of the series and his seventh in the last four games. In the bottom of the first, the Catamounts sent 15 batters to plate and parlayed five hits, five walks and two hit batters into 11 runs.
The Cougars got back-to-back solo homers from Sizemore and Michael Harrington in the third to cut WCU's lead to 11-4. The Cougars narrowed the lead to 11-6 in the fifth when Mike Hentz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force in a run, and Matt Mansilla followed with a sacrifice fly to center that plated Harrington.
J.C. Lyons' 11th homer of the season was a solo shot to right center leading off the sixth that stretched the Catamounts' lead to 12-6. Harrington, who leads the nation with 26 homers, led off the seventh with his second homer of the game, a shot to right, that cut Western's margin to 12-7.
Casey Lucchese (5-3) was the loser in relief for Charleston surrerendering a run on just one hit over 3 2/3 innings of work. Tyler Sexton (4-4) picked up the win in relief despite surrendering five runs in the ninth.
