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LYNCHBURG, Va. – Battling top-seeded Campbell and a lengthy weather delay in the third inning, Longwood baseball stood tall with valiant efforts around the diamond but fell shy of an upset bid 8-1 Tuesday night in their first action of the 2018 Big South Conference tournament.
After a weather delay that lasted over two hours and thirty minutes, Campbell used a leadoff double, three walks and a wild pitch to scratch across the game's first run and early lead before Longwood tied the contest on a solo home run from
Eric Crain.
"The rain delay obviously hurt us.
John Gregory was throwing the ball really well," said fourth-year head coach
Ryan Mau. "Watching him settle in the way he did, I thought he was going to go deep in that ball game, but then the rain hit."
"We gave him a shot. Unfortunately, he just didn't have the same stuff after the delay," Mau said.
Campbell (32-23) broke the 1-1 tie with a seventh-inning, two-run rally for a 3-1 lead before adding insurance runs and holding on 8-1 down the stretch to knock off the eighth-seeded Lancers.
That Campbell rally gave Longwood (17-37) freshman
Tommy Green a tough-luck loss after the rookie tossed 4.1 innings of relief surrendering two runs, both earned on four hits while striking out six.
"
Tommy Green was outstanding tonight," Mau said. "He gave everything he had, and then some. We just fell short on arms at the back end. I thought we had a good opportunity with the left-on-left matchup in [Michael] Catlin, we just weren't able to escape the inning."
Crain backed Green's pitching effort with a solo blast to centerfield tying the game at 1-1 in the sixth, but it was the two-run seventh from the regular-season champion Camels that proved to be the difference Tuesday night.
Sophomore southpaw
John Gregory got the starting nod from Mau, delivering 2.1 innings as he toed the rubber even after the lengthy weather delay. In his 2.1 innings of work, Gregory surrendered just one hit and one run while throwing 45 pitches.
A native of Richmond, Va., Crain cranked the first pitch he saw deep to center field, putting the upset bid within reach before the late surge.
"I told the guys that I was proud of their fight," Mau said. "Today showed that we deserve to be here and tomorrow, if we come out with the same focus and same effort, I think we'll get a different result."
Joining Crain in the Lancer hit column were
Justin Mitchell,
Nate Blakeney and
Grant Keller – who also added two web gems defensively robbing Campbell of two possible infield hits.
Freshman reliever Logan Bender picked up the win for Campbell while Green took the loss for Longwood despite matching career-highs in innings pitched (4.1) and strikeouts (6).
Campbell's late rally sends them to the winners' bracket Thursday at noon against the winner of Gardner-Webb and Winthrop while Longwood will face the loser of that same matchup Wednesday night in the final contest of the day.
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