Tyler Barfield (12) throws a pitch during the Knights’ victory over Tennessee Wesleyan on Saturday afternoon. Barfield pitched eight innings and had six strikeouts while earning the win.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Josh Zambito (24) swings at a pitch. Zambito went 2-4 from the plate.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
The Knights will wrap up their regular season with a three-game road series against Kentucky Christian over Thursday and Friday.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights baseball team beat the Tennessee Wesleyan Bulldogs in a 6-5 final (10 innings) on Saturday afternoon at Clark Field. St. Andrews improves to 24-18 (11-15 in conference games) on the season with the victory while the Bulldogs fall to 35-11 (20-7 against conference opponents) as they see their six-game winning streak come to an end.
The Knights recognized their senior class after the contest on Saturday. Head Coach Andy Fox took a moment to extend his appreciation to the 21 seniors the Knights have even with some of them set to return after the season.
“We got 21 that participated in senior day today,” Fox said. “Those guys have been very instrumental to our program and having a successful program, those guys have had a lot to do with it. We owe this senior class a lot of thank you for what they’ve done for us.”
As far as the game itself, Fox wanted to see how his group would respond after a rough doubleheader on Friday afternoon. Even with the two tough losses, Fox didn’t panic as he knew St. Andrews was capable of competing with the Bulldogs and pointed to game one as evidence.
“The one thing that I took from yesterday was it was a one-run game in the eighth inning of game one yesterday and then they dropped a nine spot on us,” Fox said. “I took a little bit of comfort in that, and I told them yesterday after the game that it was a similar series to Johnson. I challenged them to come out here and play the game like we’re capable of playing, clean baseball and see what happens.”
After two scoreless innings with just one hit (a leadoff single from Kolton Reynolds in the top of the second), the Bulldogs would grab the lead with two runs in their half of the third. Kruise Newman led the inning off with a double and then advanced to third on a sacrifice groundout to the pitcher by Devin Dixon. Kurtis Reid then drew a walk and stole second before Chris Catalano got Tennessee Wesleyan their first run of the game on a sacrifice fly, which would advance Reid to third and allow him to score on a passed ball to make it 2-0.
The Knights were able to to get a run back in the bottom of the third on a leadoff home run by Garrett Wolff. The next two innings were rather uneventful as there were no runs and just two hits, both by the Knights (a single by Aiden Wilson in the fourth and a single by Adrian Ojea in the fifth).
The Bulldogs were able to momentarily restore their two-run advantage in the top of the sixth frame thanks to a one-out solo homer from Josh Shelly. St. Andrews immediately answered back in their half of the inning, starting with consecutive one-out singles from Wilson and Josh Zambito, who both then advanced on a passed ball. Garrett Hamby would then drive in Wilson with an RBI single to make it 3-2.
Despite both teams getting a hit in the seventh frame, neither scored any runs. The Knights were then able to turn the game upside down in their half of the eighth, racking up four hits and scoring three runs to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 5-3 advantage with Cesar Morillo providing the tie breaking two-out two-RBI single.
Tennessee Wesleyan did not back down, getting the two runs they needed to extend the game in the top of the ninth. They only had one hit in the inning (leadoff single from Corbin Shaw) but drew four walks to help get the runs across. Despite St. Andrews getting two hits in the bottom of the ninth and the Bulldogs getting one in the top of the 10th, neither team could take the lead back.
That changed in the bottom of the 10th, with Eric Cantu getting on base with a one-out single in a pinch hitter spot before Kade Bell came in to pinch run for him and stole second base. Morillo would come through again with a walk-off RBI double to score Bell and give the Knights an important victory.
Morillo went 2-6 batting with a team high three RBIs. Hamby went 3-5 to lead the team in hits and added two RBIs. St. Andrews outhit Tennessee Wesleyan 15-7 over the course of the game.
Morillo didn’t shy away from how critical this win was for the Knights as they head toward the home stretch of their season. In regard to his two late clutch at bats, he knew what kind of pitches to expect after seeing a lot of off speed over the course of the series and let his instincts take over.
“That win put us in a good place, we didn’t want to get swept, we needed this win,” Morillo said. “I just told myself I’m a good two-strike hitter, I was sitting on off speed both times and I put a good swing on it to help my team.”
Tyler Barfield started the game for the Knights on the mound and gave them eight innings of three-run ball to earn the win. He had six strikeouts against four walks.
The Knights will wrap up their regular season on the road with a three-game series against Kentucky Christian over Thursday and Friday (doubleheader). Thursday’s game will start at 3 p.m. while Friday’s contests have start times of noon and 2 p.m.