May 17, 2007

ST. CHARLES, Mo. - The Lindenwood baseball took game one of the best-of-three NAIA Super Regional on Thursday evening at the Lou Brock Sports Complex. The Lions overcame a 5-1 deficit and defeated Houston Baptist by an 8-7 score.

Lindenwood took an early lead in the second inning when Chris Bielski led the inning off with a double, and then scored a batter later on a single by Travis McConnell.

Neither team scored again until the bottom of the fourth when Houston Baptist put five on the scoreboard with a two-out rally. With one run already inning, the Lions committed an error to keep the inning alive. The Huskies took advantage by scoring four more times, three coming on a hoe run by Greg Gossett.

Lindenwood wasted no time in answering that. With one out in the fifth, Chris Getz doubled in Ryan Shockley, and two batters later, Getz came around to score on a hit by Mike Parson. The Lions then hit a three-run homer of their own, with Bielski hitting a long shot to left-center.

Houston Baptist tied the back-and-forth game in the bottom half of that inning when Eric Shiro led off with a triple and then scored on a groundout. After that triple, Lindenwood starter Eric Hullinger settled down and pitched his best baseball, going his last three innings without allowing a hit.

The Lions' offense gave Hullinger the lead in the top of the sixth, with Getz again playing a big role. Lindenwood had three straight singles, with the final one coming from Getz and scoring Tim Hall.

In the Lions' seventh, with runners on the corner, Matt Pohlman appeared to be caught stealing on a pickoff move, but the throw down to second hit him, allowing pinch runner Corey Hill to score and put the Lions up 8-6.

That run turned out to be huge in the eighth inning when Houston Baptist tried to rally back. The Huskies had runners on first and second when the lead runner got caught trying to steal third. After a walk, closer David Fields came into the game with two outs. Chad Hebert came through with a single that scored Kory Johns and made the score 8-7. Fields got the next batter to strike out, ending that threat.

In the ninth, Fields completed his save by setting Houston Baptist down 1-2-3 for just the second time on the night. The game concluded on a great catch by second baseman Shockley on a ball hit in shallow right-center.

For Lindenwood, Getz finished the game with four hits, two RBIs and a run. Bielski had two hits and two runs to go along with his three RBIs.

Starter Eric Hullinger picked up his third win of the postseason after going seven innings and allowing just two earned runs. Fields picked up his 14th save of the 2007 season.

Houston Baptist was led offensively by Johns who had three hits, two runs and a RBI. Hebert also had a multi-hit game, scored once and drove in one batter.

The series concludes tomorrow afternoon, starting at 2 p.m. in St. Charles, Mo. The Lions need to win just one of two games to earn their first-ever trip to the NAIA World Series.