Box Score TIFTON – On paper, there could hardly be more contrast between the baseball programs at ABAC and William Carey University.
The Crusaders are the defending champion in the Southern States Athletic Conference and have won the league title three of the last four years. ABAC is coming off a sub .500 season at the junior college level and has just begun its NAIA rookie season. In the third and final game of the teams' series at Stallion Field Sunday, William Carey's batting order featured nine seniors. ABAC does not have a senior on the roster. So when the Stallions dropped the first two games of the series, the outcomes were what they logically should have been.
But games aren't played on paper. And when the final score from Game Three flashed 4-3 in ABAC's favor, there was a sense of satisfaction that a bright future does not necessarily have to have Father Time's approval.
The Stallions broke a 1-1 tie with two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning and held on for the program's first SSAC victory.
Reigh Jordan pitched seven strong innings for the win, allowing only three hits and two earned runs. Freshman
Lalan Ellis allowed one hit and one run while striking out three in the final two innings to notch his first Stallion save.
After
Quinten Rawls scored on
Dylan Davis's RBI double to tie the game 1-1 in the third inning, ABAC jumped ahead in the fifth. Davis and first baseman Cris Walley led off the inning with walks and moved up a base on
Brayden Fordham's ground out. Then, sophomore right fielder
Joe Cooney delivered the big blow, a two-run single for a 3-1 lead.
The Crusaders got one of those runs back in the top of the sixth before the Stallions struck again in the seventh. Fordham was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a wild pitch with no outs. Third baseman
Chasin Cash ripped a one-out single to bring Fordham home.
William Carey's Eli Collins made the home fans nervous with a solo home run in the eighth inning but Ellis got the Crusaders out in order in the top of the ninth to save the win.
In Saturday's first game, the Crusaders got a complete-game win from starter Matthew Davis in a 5-0 win. Over seven innings, the Stallions managed five hits and never advanced a runner past second base. Rawls had two hits to lead ABAC at the plate while
Kade Haywood suffered his first loss of the year, allowing four earned runs over six innings of work.
The Stallions, now 6-4 overall and 1-2 in the conference, is scheduled to face conference foe Thomas University at home Wednesday at 3 p.m. in a non-conference matchup.
