JACKSON, Miss. – The no. 14 Centre baseball team hit the road for the first time all season as they battled the Millsaps Majors in a rematch from last season's opening round series in the conference tournament. With severe weather ripping through the south, the series was pushed back a day, with Saturday's doubleheader moved to Sunday. Centre came from behind to win 2-1 in the opener before falling 5-4 in game 2, ending their win streak at 12 games.
Game 1: Centre 2, Millsaps 1
- The Colonels looked to threaten in the opening inning as they loaded the bases with one out following an
Ayden Lohr single and walks to
Ben Prather and
Evan Rygalski, but Millsaps got out of the jam unscathed.
- In the bottom of the first, the Majors tripled on their second at-bat of the game, with the runner later scoring on a sacrifice fly to put Millsaps up 1-0. This would be the last run
Harrison Cowdrey would give up.
- The middle innings belonged to both pitchers as neither offense could get much going with the Majors clinging to their 1-0 lead. In the third, Millsaps loaded the bases with nobody out after a walk, a hit by pitch and an infield single, but Cowdrey got a force out at the plate and then induced a 6-4-3 double play to escape with no harm.
- Cowdrey escaped another predicament in the sixth after allowing consecutive doubles to put runners on second and third as he got the next two hitters to ground out
- The Colonels hadn't recorded a hit for four innings until
Evan Weyler led off the top of the ninth with a base hit up the middle. Rygalski followed with a single, but the Majors quickly got two outs and had the Colonels down to their final strike.
Jamison Craig came through with a clutch base hit to tie the game. With the game now looking extra innings in the face,
Aaron Lopez worked the count full and delivered another base hit to bring home pinch runner
Carson Mire for the go-ahead run.
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Zach Heavern needed just eight pitches to get three outs in the eighth and then set the Majors down in the ninth to complete an improbable victory for the Colonels.
Game 2: Millsaps 5, Centre 4
- Centre got on the board first in the top of the third with a big inning. Lopez led off with a shot up the middle for a hit.
JT Weisberg wound up on second after an error and Lohr delivered his second hit of the game to make it 1-0. After Prather reached on another Millsaps error, Weyler went the other way for a base hit and a 2-0 lead.
- The rally continued as Lohr scored on a wild pitch to give Centre a 3-0 lead. The Colonels capped off the four-run frame on
Chase Austin's RBI groundout.
- The Majors chipped away at the lead over the rest of the game, scoring their first run in the fourth on two hits and two errors. In the fifth, Millsaps added two more on three hits, an error and an RBI groundout.
- Millsaps scored runs in each of the final two innings, tying it in the sixth with an RBI double and scoring an unearned run in the seventh to get the win.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORES
- Heavern earned his fourth win of the season out of the pen after pitching a pair of no-hit innings in relief of Cowdrey, who allowed just the one run in the first in seven tough innings of work.
- Lohr finished with three hits in each of the games, providing six of Centre's 14 total hits in the doubleheader.
NEXT UP
The Colonels will play the final matchup of their series at Millsaps on Monday at 1 PM.
