Liberty comes up short in Big South title bid

Published: May 25, 2008

Gary Gilmore knew it was time. The bags were full of Liberty base runners with two outs in the fifth inning of Saturday’s Big South tournament championship game at Dan Daniel Memorial Park and CCU pitcher Nick McCully, working on short rest, had little left to give. Liberty had put so many crooked numbers on the scoreboard in the last three days that Gilmore wasn’t taking any chances.

With Garrett Young at the plate, Gilmore trudged to the mound, patted McCully on the back and took the ball, giving it to the best stopper in the Big South — Joey Haug. One pitch later, Coastal’s players sprinted to the dugout, celebrating wildly. Young slowly walked back to the LU dugout after fouling out on the first pitch to third baseman Scott Woodward.

Coastal still trailed by a run, but buoyed by the energy of getting that key out, the Chants scored twice in the bottom of the fifth to take the lead for good. They ran a fatigued David Stokes off the mound with four runs in the sixth and cruised to a 9-2 victory, securing their ninth conference tournament title.

“A base hit right there? Whoo! We’re in a donnybrook again,” Gilmore said. “I know how big that was. We were ecstatic to get out of that inning.”

The Flames whipped the Chanticleers 13-1 in Game 10 Saturday afternoon to force the championship’s final game, riding another ridiculous offensive showing and the left arm of freshman Steven Evans, who threw 138 pitches and gutted through eight innings, allowing just three Coastal hits.

Evans baffled Coastal with his offspeed stuff and peppered in fastballs when needed. Combined with another double-digit offensive performance, Liberty surged into the title game.

“They spanked us pretty good,” Gilmore said. “That was the worst loss we had all year, no doubt about it. That was the most helpless feeling I’ve had in the dugout all year.”

Liberty squeezed out a run in the first inning of Game 11. Kenneth Negron was hit by a pitch, moved to second on Errol Hollinger’s groundout to the pitcher and scored on Cody Brown’s single. The lead held until the fourth, when Coastal (47-12) tied the game on Tyler Bortnick’s RBI single.

Liberty (35-26-1) was poised to hang another big number on the scoreboard in the fifth. David Giammaresi drove in Aaron Phillips to give LU a 2-1 lead thanks to Bortnick’s error at shortstop. After Brown struck out, Young came up, and Haug came in.

“I wanted the ball as soon as the day started,” Haug said. “I’m leaving it all out there, trying to get a ring.”

Young was sitting on a first-pitch breaking ball, and Haug obliged, throwing an inside slider. It just wasn’t a very good one. That actually worked out for Haug, because the pitch was high and Young was swinging anyway. He caught the inside of the ball and popped it up harmlessly.

“It was spinning and spinning, I was waiting for it to come down,” Young said. “I was sitting on it, but it just never came down. It was a little up and I just popped it right up. But I’d rather be aggressive in that situation than just take and take and wait for something.”

Coastal took the lead in the bottom half of the fifth. Rico Noel tripled and scored on a Woodward double. The speedy Woodward moved to third on David Sappelt’s deep fly to center and scored when Dock Doyle grounded out to first. Giammaresi tried to throw Woodward out at home on the play, but Woodward evaded catcher Errol Hollinger’s tag.

Coastal broke it open in the sixth. Stokes, who threw four innings Wednesday against Radford, finally wore down. The Chanticleers strung together four consecutive two-out hits, with Jose Iglesias, Noel, Woodward and Sappelt each driving in a run. CCU led 7-2.

“We just ran out of gas,” Liberty coach Jim Toman said. “You can’t pinpoint one at-bat or one play. We fought hard all game and all week, so I’m proud of the guys. We put together a really good run. I guess we came up four or five innings short. Fifteen outs away from a regional, but the guys battled hard for all nine innings, so I don’t have any regrets.”

The loss didn’t put a damper on what was a strong tournament run for the Flames. After losing 15-4 to Radford Wednesday, Liberty righted itself and scored 51 runs in its next five games. The Flames broke a 21-year-old tournament record by scoring 55 runs, three more than Winthrop in 1987.

Liberty also got a glimpse of the future in Evans, who shook off the pressure of pitching in an elimination game to shut down one of the nation’s top 50 offensive teams. Evans, who last year was the ace of Amherst County High School’s staff, proved himself worthy of earning a spot in next season’s weekend rotation.

“I’ve been real proud of the kid,” Young said. “I thought he was a little goofy coming in, but he’s stepped up in some big situations and big games for us. Today was another example. We needed him to throw all nine, or almost all nine, for us to have a good chance of winning that second game, and he did it. He’s got a bright future ahead of him.”

Notes: Liberty OF P.K. Keller, who had missed the previous four games with an injured right shoulder, came in as a pinch hitter in the top of the ninth inning and slapped a single to right in his final at-bat as a Flame. … LU’s Brown and Jeff Jefferson both finished the tournament batting .500. Brown went 13-for-26 with four doubles, two home runs and seven RBI. Jefferson went 12-for-4 with two doubles and seven RBI. … Coastal’s Bortnick was named the tournament’s MVP.

Big South all-tournament team
C - Dock Doyle, Coastal Carolina; John Murrian, Winthrop
IF - Cody Brown, Liberty; Alex Gregory, Radford; Tyler Bortnick, Coastal Carolina; Bryn Henderson, Winthrop
OF - Jeff Jefferson, Liberty; David Sappelt, Coastal Carolina; Reggie Keen, Radford; Tommy Baldridge, Coastal Carolina
DH - Garrett Young, Liberty
UT - Joey Haug, Coastal Carolina
P - Ryan Mullins, Winthrop; Dustin Umberger, Liberty; Steven Evans, Liberty
MVP - Tyler Bortnick, Coastal Carolina

GAME 10
LIBERTY 100 522 030 – 13 14 2
COASTAL CAROLINA 000 001 000 – 1 4 3
WP — Steven Evans (3-3). LP — Austin Fleet (5-3).
Highlights — LU: Garrett Young 4-4, 4 runs, HR, RBI; Cody Brown 2-4, 2 run, 2B, RBI; Kenneth Negron 2-4, 2 runs, RBI, SB; Jeff Jefferson 2-4, 2B, run, 3 RBI; Steven Evans 8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 7 K, 4 BB. CCU: Tommy Baldridge 1-3, RBI.

GAME 11
LIBERTY 100 010 000 – 2 6 1
COASTAL CAROLINA 000 124 20X – 9 17 1
WP — Joey Haug (7-0). LP — David Stokes (8-6).
Highlights — LU: Cody Brown 1-4, RBI; Errol Hollinger 2-5. CCU: Jose Iglesias 2-4, run, 3 RBI; Rico Noel 3-4, 2B, 3B, 2 runs, RBI; Scott Woodward 3-4, 2B, 2 runs, 2 RBI; Joey Haug 2 1/3 IP, 1 H, 1 K, 0 BB.