Ryan Beamish drilled a three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning to break open a tie game and lead the Lee baseball team to a 4-1 victory over Carson-Newman on Monday afternoon.
Beamish now has four long balls on the year after smashing a 2-2 pitch over the right field wall at Olympic Field off Eagles reliever Matt Bradley. Bradley entered the contest with six saves and a 0.93 ERA.
"Beamish is playing with a lot of confidence and putting good swings on the ball," said head coach Mark Brew.
"He's a veteran player and provides with a great leadership. I thought Justin Fragale set the tone for the inning with a perfectly executed bunt single right before the Beamish home run."
Thomas Zazzaro got the call on the bump and led the way for another quality pitching performance from the Lee staff. The sophomore sat down the first eight men he faced before running into some trouble in the third inning. Alan Silva hit a single to left for the first Eagles hit. Micah Genter followed with a base hit up the middle on the 10th pitch of the at bat before leadoff hitter Ethan Goforth drove in the Eagles lone run of the game on a sacrifice fly to center.
Zazzaro went four innings allowing just two hits. From their Lance Hamilton, Ian Turner, David Pattison, Randall Coxwell and Brandon Thompson slammed the door allowing just two hits over five relief innings. Pattison earned the win to improve to 2-0. Thompson set Carson-Newman down in order with a pair of punch outs to earn his first save.
Lee tied things up in the bottom of the third. Keshaun Smith tripled to straightaway center to leadoff the third inning and came around to score on a Parker Stahlman RBI groundout.
Fernando Ortiz provided the third straight leadoff hit to start an inning for the Flames as he doubled to open up the bottom of the fourth. Eagles starter Kyle Shaver worked out of the jam however to keep the score tied at 1-1.
Shaver tossed 3.2 innings allowing three hits and a run while striking out three for Carson-Newman. Nick Adkins pitched 1.1 scoreless innings. Cameron Bloebaum (0-1) was
tagged with the loss as he was charged with two runs in 0.2 innings before giving way to Bradley with Beamish at the plate in the sixth.
The Eagles threatened in the top the sixth inning loading the bases before Pattinson got out of the jam with a fielder's choice.
"Our pitching staff and defense continue to perform at a high level," added Brew. "The plan was to get Zazzaro to give us four and then get a lot of arms in the game. It was nice to Lance back at there. We need another left handed arm in the bullpen and he pitched well for us today. I thought Carson-Newman pitched well today and were playing really well coming into the game so we knew we would need to play well to get the win."
The Flames have now won three straight and improve to 6-5 overall. The loss drops the Eagles to 10-3.
The Brew crew will get back into Gulf South Conference play this weekend as they travel to West Alabama for a three-game set. The series gets underway with a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 3 p.m.