LAWRENCEVILLE – After scoring just once in Tuesday's first game, the Cal State San Marcos offense surged for nine runs in the opening two innings in the replay as the top-ranked Georgia Gwinnett baseball team fell 11-5 to the Cougars in the championship game of the A.I.I. tournament at Grizzly Baseball Complex.
The Grizzlies, who picked up a 2-1 victory in the afternoon to extend their tournament lives, will now enter next week's NAIA National Championship tournament with a 47-12 record. The event will begin for the Green and Gray in Lawrenceville as the school is set to host the Opening Round for a second straight season, and the winner will advance to the Avista-NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho.
The first game represented a rare pitching showdown on the final day of a conference tournament as both teams struggled to push a run across in the game's opening four frames. It was Ernesto Vazquez who eventually broke through the deadlock, leading off the fifth with a single to shallow left before back-to-back Marcus McCorkle and Ty Abbott singles brought him home.
The slim edge would be short-lived, however, as GGC starter Jeremy Holcomb gave up a walk and a single to lead off the bottom of the fifth. He would be replaced by Ryan Minteer, who surrendered a sacrifice fly before Davis Adkins and Christian Turnipseed combined to toss a scoreless 4.1 innings.
Adkins also starred in the day's second game and finished the day allowing just four hits combined over seven innings of work.
Vazquez, who ended the first game 2-for-4, also played the role of hero in the sixth, singling home the go-ahead score to force a second game with the second-seeded Cougars.
It would be a more disparate tale of pitching in the second game as the Cougars turned to eventual A.I.I. Championship Most Outstanding Player Emilio Esquibel. The right-hander lived up to his billing as the conference's top pitcher as he took the mound with just two days rest to pick up his second victory of the tournament, allowing four earned runs on eight hits in 5.1 innings of work.
He was helped by an offense that opened the game with five runs in the first to chase Grizzly starter Austin Smith from the mound before he recorded an out. The Cougars would continue to score, adding another four in the second before Jeried Woods touched home on a Vazquez single in the third to put the Green and Gray on the board. Abbott doubled home a pair later in the frame, but the visitors from California ultimately quashed the comeback effort with two more in the fifth to grab an insurmountable 11-3 lead.
Vazquez, who ended 2-for-3 in the contest, launched his first career homer over the fence in left in the sixth, and Michael Hodorowski scored another consolation run in the seventh to account for the game's final score.
Following the day's games, the Grizzly trio of Woods, Brian Jacobs and Joseph Boatright was named to the A.I.I. All-Tournament team.
The Grizzlies will return to postseason action in next week's NAIA Opening Round, and further information on the event as well as the other four teams that will make up the Lawrenceville Bracket will be released later this week.
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