Wingate and LMU Advance to 2024 SAC Baseball Championship
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
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0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
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2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | X | 8 | 7 | 1 |
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Third-seeded Wingate and fifth-seed Lincoln Memorial have advanced to the 2024 SAC Baseball Championship next weekend. The Bulldogs came out of bracket one in Hartsville by staving off four elimination games to come from the loser's bracket to advance. Meanwhile, LMU dominated bracket two in Salisbury and went a perfect 3-0.
The Bulldogs clinched by sweeping a Sunday doubleheader over Newberry. Wingate dropped the first game of the weekend by a final of 18-6 to the Wolves on Friday. They would rally to defeat Coker 5-4 in 10 innings and then beat Carson-Newman 15-3 to set up Sunday's twin bill. In game one, Cam Harris went 4-for-6 with five RBI and Sean Barnett and Brett Adams each homered as WU won 13-7. A dropped fly ball in the bottom of the eighth in game two plated the winning run for Wingate in an 8-7 clinching victory.
LMU slugged past Tusculum in their opener on Friday. The Railsplitters hit five homers – by five different batters – to top the Pioneers 16-13. Pitching took over from there as Eli Edds tossed a complete-game shutout of top-seeded Catawba on Saturday. LMU hit four more bombs in that game and then eliminated Catawba today with an 8-3 win. Cameron Bowen hit two home runs and SAC Player of the Year Carson Boles broke it open with a 3-run bomb in the bottom of the seventh. Ethan Bobo allowed just two earned runs in his seven innings and LMU finished the weekend with 12 HR in three games.
Wingate and LMU will meet in a best-of-three championship series starting Friday at McCrary Park in Asheboro. First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 4 p.m. with game one on Saturday set for a noon first pitch.