Solid pitching, timely hitting and errorless baseball all came together in Lee’s 5-1 victory over Lincoln Memorial University on Wednesday afternoon at Larry Carpenter Stadium. The win evened the Flames’ record to 2-2 while the visiting Railsplitters dropped to 2-3.
Working against the predicted weather, Lee coach Mark Brew moved Wednesday’s game to a 12 noon start and it turned into an excellent February afternoon for baseball. He will seek to do the same again this Friday and Saturday when Hillsdale College (Mich.) comes to town for three games.
A single nine-inning contest has been moved to Friday (3 p.m.) and a doubleheader is slated for Saturday beginning at 1 p.m.
The Flames used four pitchers in Wednesday’s win. Zachary Lawson started and worked four innings. He allowed one hit, one earned run, walked three, and fanned four. Colt McKibben followed for two innings and was credited with the win. In two innings, he gave up one hit and no runs. The lefty walked two and struck out two.
Ty Cobb was impressive in the seventh and eighth innings. The Railsplitters managed to get just one hit off the right-hander. He put up zeros when it came to runs and base on balls, while he sent two LMU players down swinging. All totaled, Lee hurlers recorded eight strikeouts. Hunter Lane pitched the ninth. He gave up one of LMU’s 4 hits and issued one of the 6 walks to the team from the South Atlantic Conference.
LMU took a 1-0 lead in the second inning without a hit. Alex Kowalski walked and stole second and third. He scored when Sam Mast chased a pitch that went all the way to the screen. Instead of being the third out of the inning, Mast reached first on what was scored a strikeout and wild pitch. Kowalski was allowed to come home and score on the wild play.
The Flames tallied two runs in the bottom of the second and never trailed again. Isaiah French, who joined JJ Williams as the only Lee player with two hits, singled, stole second and tallied the first run on a one-base hit by Josiah Miller. Cooper Doughman, walked after French’s hit and tallied on Ryan Valdes single.
The contest rocked along at a 2-1 pace until Lee moved up 3-1 in the seventh. Levi Cloud collected a hit, but when he was thrown out from third to first, Valdez reached on the fielder’s choice. Valdez stole second and crossed home on Ashton Simmons ringing double.
The Flames added a pair of insurance runs to make it a 5-3 game in the bottom of the eighth. Luke Collier reached on a hard-hit ball that was scored an error. Williams followed with his second hit of the day and both Collier and Williams would tally on a two RBI one-base hit by French.
The final total saw Lee getting eight hits, drawing three walks, and striking out five times. The Flames left five men on base and the Railsplitters had four hits but drew six walks and had two batters hit by pitches. They left a total of 11 runners on the bases.