LAWRENCEVILLE – It was a performance that won't soon be forgotten by Head Coach Brad Stromdahl as the Georgia Gwinnett baseball team rallied behind starting pitcher Joseph Boatright to stave off elimination and advance to the final day of the A.I.I. Championship tournament at Grizzly Baseball Complex.
After falling 16-7 in the day's opening game against Cal State San Marcos, Stromdahl turned to Boatright, who was making just his fifth start of the season, for the elimination game with Houston-Victoria. The junior out of Augusta stepped up to the challenge and led the Grizzlies to a 5-1 victory, tossing 5.2 frames and allowing one run on three hits while striking out six.
"Joseph went out and competed as hard as any player has ever competed here in the last three years," Stromdahl said. "He deserves every bit of that victory, and he's really put us in a position to win a championship tomorrow. That was exactly the kind of performance that we needed tonight, and he gave it to us."
"I just tried to go out there today and throw strikes and give the team a chance to win," said Boatright, who improved to 3-0 on the season. "I was trying to go as long as I could out there and help keep the bullpen fresh with another day left in the tournament. We really want to win this conference championship tomorrow, and tonight was just a good team win for us overall."
With the victory, the Grizzlies, ranked No. 1 in the latest NAIA poll, improved to 46-11 on the year, and they will now need to beat Cal State San Marcos twice in order to retain their A.I.I. crown.
In the day's first game, the Green and Gray were dealt an early five-run deficit, but it was GGC that jumped ahead quickly in the nightcap as Arsenio Watlington and Marcus McCorkle led off the first inning with back-to-back singles before a pair of groundballs from Ty Abbott and Kyler Timmerman pushed across the opening tallies.
Abbott would be involved once again in the third, doubling and scoring on a wild pitch en route to ending the night 1-for-4 with a run, RBI and walk. Watlington was the only Grizzly to register multiple hits, finishing 2-for-5 with a stolen base, and on the whole, the team out-hit the visitors from Texas 8-4.
Trey Haygood, who twice came on as a courtesy runner for GGC catcher Brian Jacobs, accounted for the rest of the scoring for the Green and Gray, touching home on a Watlington single in the fourth and a wild pitch in the sixth.
After surrendering a score on a wild pitch in the sixth, Boatright made way for Andy Threatt, who recorded the next seven outs before Christian Turnipseed struck out two of the three hitters he faced in the ninth to lock up the win for the Grizzlies.
In the day's early game, Cal State San Marcos scored early and often as the Cougars pushed at least one run across in all but one of the first five frames en route to running out to a 10-1 lead.
First pitch on Tuesday is set for 1 p.m., and the potential second game will start approximately 30 minutes after the completion of the first.
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