Pilots Roll Into GCAC Finals
May 03, 2008
MOBILE, Ala. - The LSUS Pilots bounced top-seeded University of Mobile from the 2008 GCAC Baseball Tournament by taking a wild and wacky 18-11 ball game that lasted all of 3 hours and 46 minutes.
The game featured 29 combined runs, 30 combined hits, 8 errors and 5 balks. Fans that stuck it out witnessed over 350 pitches thrown by 7 pitchers. While the game featured a pair of potent offenses and lackluster defensive efforts, Justin Ennis breathed some life into the Pilots, by tossing 5.1 innings of relief, while allowing only 1 earned run, with 3 strikeouts to pick up the victory.
The Pilots built a 6-3 lead after 3 innings of action as Quentin Shamsabady produced RBI singles in the 2nd and 3rd innings, and the Pilots capitalized on a Mobile miscue to plate 3 unearned in the 3rd.
But, the Rams stormed back with a 6-run 4th inning to take a temporary lead. In that inning, the Rams got run-scoring hits from Matthew Sparks, Kevin Orso and Carlos Romero, and were aided by a pair of Pilot errors.
However, the Pilots stormed back to knot the game with 3 unearned runs in the bottom half of the frame as Shamsabady produced yet another RBI hit and Andrew Blubaugh had a 2-run double.
After the Rams took another short-lived lead thanks to some more Pilot errors in the top of the 5th, the Pilots put the game on ice by batting around in the bottom of the 6th and plating 8 runs off of the Mobile bullpen.
A pair of wild pitches plated the first two runs in the frame for the Pilots, LSUS had productive outs with a pair of sac flys, and Josh Todd hit a 2-run double, followed by a RBI single from Shamsabady.
Shamsabady finished 5-for-5 with 4 RBI and 4 runs at the top of the Pilots' order, Andrew Blubuagh went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI, Andrew Brouillette finished 3-for-5, Craig Barnes and Bryan Stebbings both had 2-hit evenings, and Todd finished 1-for-5 with 4 runs scored batting in the 9-hole.
The Pilots (44-14) advance to face Belhaven in the GCAC Championship Game Saturday at 1:00 at Spring Hill. Because LSUS is undefeated in the tournament, they will have two chances to win, if necessary.
