VANCOUVER - Coyote killer Mark Hardy held the West Region's top hittng team to just one run as the UBC Thunderbirds beat the College of Idaho 3-1 on Friday to advance to the NAIA West Grouping Tournament final.
In his last outing, Hardy prevented a four game Coyotes sweep of the T-Birds that would have seen the College of Idaho host the grouping tournament, giving his 'Birds a 7-4 win to earn hosting rights. He proved it was no fluke today by scattering eight hits over seven strong innings, striking out six while walking just one batter to earn the win.
"Big game for Mark, and that's two in a row for him now which is a good sign for us at the end of the year," said UBC head coach Terry McKaig. "He is at his best right now and that's what we need from him."
Hardy left in the eighth inning with no outs, a man on first and a two-run lead, but the Coyotes didn't make things easy on T-Birds closer Shawn Hetherington. Diego Robles managed to muscle a jammed shot just over Sammie Starr's head at short stop, and then an error by third baseman Keaton Briscoe loaded the bags still with none out in the frame. But Hetherington was able to buckle down and get Jared Arehart to ground one right back to the mound for a 1-2-3 double play, and then induced an Isaac Garsez groundout to end the threat. He also pitched a perfect ninth inning to earn the save.
"That is as tight a situation as you are going to get but Shawn still got outs and showed a lot of confidence in himself," said McKaig. "He's struggled in his consistency a little bit this year but that was a big time outing today."
The T-Birds were short-changed in a bases loaded threat of their own back in the first inning, as Idaho starter Jacob Coats walked two batters and hit one before recording a single out, but Nic Lendvoy grounded into a double play which scored one run, and that was all they could get as Andrew Firth also grounded out to end the inning.
"Obviously we wish we could have had a little more early on when we had Coats on the ropes there but we couldn't get the big hit with the bases loaded," McKaig said. "But that's baseball. Yesterday we cashed in all those situations and today we struggled but this is playoff baseball and our pitching and defence made the difference."
A Robles RBI single in the third inninng tied the game at one, but Lendvoy and Sean Pisarski both had RBI singles for UBC in the bottom of the frame to give the lead right back to the home side. That was it for the scoring, as Bobby Wassmann allowed no runs and just three hits in 5.1 innings of relief work for the Coyotes, and Hardy and Heatherington were both solid for UBC.
UBC's one and two-spot hitters Alex White and Pisarski led the way with two hits each. Unsurprisingly, Robles was the Coyotes' top threat on the day. He was the top hitter in the region during the regular season and went 3-for-4 in the game with a double and an RBI.
The Coyotes will be right back in action against the Oregon Tech Hustlin' Owls this afternoon at Nat Bailey Stadium. They beat the Owls 10-4 in the opening game of the tournament, and will be looking to do the same tonight with a trip to the finals at stake for the winner. The T-Birds will be awaiting the winner of Oregon-Idaho in the final, which goes at noon on Saturday at Nat Bailey. If the T-Birds lose that game, a second game will immediately follow to determine the NAIA West Grouping Tournament winner.
