Catawba and Wingate Advance Out of SAC Baseball Opening Weekend

ROCK HILL, S.C. (theSAC.com) -- The top two seeds have advanced past the Opening Round and will square off in next weekend's SAC Championship hosted in Asheboro, N.C. The top seeded Catawba Indians and second-seed Wingate Bulldogs each went 3-0 in bracket play and will square of in a best-of-three series which starts Friday at 4 p.m. at McCrary Park, the home of the Asheboro Zookeepers. 

Catawba took down Coker 11-3 in their tournament opener on Friday, and then survived a scare from Lincoln Memorial in the winner's bracket. LMU's Adrin Smith had a shutout going into the bottom of the ninth as the Railsplitters had a 1-0 advantage. Down to their final out, catcher Matthew Connolly singled through the left side to score Sam Hunter and Jake Dunlap as Catawba walked off LMU. SAC Pitcher of the Year Casey Gouge allowed just one run in 7.1 innings for Catawba and Seth Sharpe got the final five outs to earn the win. Catawba would meet up with Coker again, this time in the final, and dominated the 8-seed to the tune of a 10-0 win. 

Wingate survived a scare of their own. In game one, Newberry led 4-2 in the bottom of the 8th before the Bulldogs rallied on an RBI triple from Jalen Evans and an RBI from Reed Benamati to put WU up 5-4. The Wolves would tie the game in the 9th on a bomb from Nick Foster. Finn McLaughlin capped a 4-RBI game with a solo homer in the 11th to put Newberry back up. However, Wingate answered again with back-to-back sacrifice flys to walk off the Wolves in 11. Wingate would then topple Lenoir-Rhyne 9-5 in the winner's bracket and then defeated the Bears in an elimination game by a final of 12-11 to advance to the championship. 

Catawba and Wingate will meet on Friday at 4 p.m. and then play on Saturday at 1 p.m. with a 4 p.m. game, if necessary, to crown a champion.