PORTLAND, Oregon – The UBC Thunderbirds baseball team, the No. 2 seeds at the NAIA West tournament, will not defend their conference title after a 7-1 loss to the No. 5 seeded Concordia Cavaliers on Thursday night.
Concordia's five runs in the bottom of the sixth broke open what had been a close game in Portland.
With the result, the Cavs (25-27) eliminated the defending tournament champions in the Thunderbirds (28-19), while keeping themselves in the tournament.
The Cavs will now play Menlo tomorrow, May 4, at 12 p.m., with the winner joining The College of Idaho as the final two teams in the tourney.
On Thursday though, UBC and Concordia played a relatively even game with the one difference being that the Cavs capitalized on their opportunities and the Thunderbirds did not.
Overall, the Thunderbirds got their leadoff hitter on in seven of the nine innings, but only brought one unearned run home. That led to 12 stranded base runners for the Thunderbirds, compared to just six for the Cavaliers.
Concordia, meanwhile, played small ball to get their first two runs—using a sacrifice bunt and a hit-and-run for single scores in the first and third innings, respectively—but then broke out with a five-run, two-out rally in the sixth. Ryan Rodriguez delivered the first run of the inning, sending a double down the left-field line that scored teammate Sean Myrom and moved C.J. Watson to third. Cole Shidaki then followed with a pinch-hit single that scored Watson and moved Rodriguez to third.
Blake Drake walked to load the bases after that, setting the stage for leadoff hitter Sheldon Austria. Austria, with his team up three at 4-1, came through with a double to the wall in right that cleared the bases for three more CU runs.
British Columbia nearly came right back with a rally of their own in the seventh though, as CU starter Mitch Ludtke walked the first two UBC batters in the inning. However, the Cavs' Shayne Nakata took over from there, and, after falling behind 3-0 to the first batter he faced, promptly struck out three UBC batters in a row to get his team out of the jam.
UBC had other chances in the game too, but that was their best opportunity to put some pressure back on the Cavs late.
Earlier, UBC evened the game at 1-1 with a run in the top of the third.
Blake Carruthers (3rd, Calgary, AB) led off the inning with a hit for the Thunderbirds, before a misplay in the Concordia infield put two UBC runners on again with no outs in the inning. Concordia would bounce back with a fly out against the next batter, but shot themselves in the foot again with another error that loaded the bases for UBC.
Mike Hole (3rd, Vancouver, BC) stepped into the batter's box after that for UBC, and sent a deep grounder to short that looked like it'd squirt into the outfield. However, CU's Jordan Keeker showed nice range to get to the ball in the gap, and then collected himself enough to throw out the runner going to third. Even though UBC scored on the play, it completely reshaped the inning, since the Cavs now had two outs and just two runners on. In addition, Ludtke induced a grounder to Keeker during the next at bat, which fittingly let the CU shortstop end the threat for UBC.
In the end, Austria led the way for the Cavs from the plate, going 2-for-4 with a run scored and three runs batted in.
On the flip side, no UBC player had multiple hits in the game, though six of their starting nine got at least one.
On the mound, Ludtke picked up the win for the Cavs, with Nakata and Eric Weir each contributing scoreless relief appearances. UBC starter
Matt Trimble (1st, Port Coquitlam, BC), meanwhile, received the loss.
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