After falling behind early, late-inning magic propelled the Bisons to a win in their first ASUN conference game in two years against the Kennesaw State Owls.
Coming into the Friday afternoon matchup the Owls’ starting pitcher graduate transfer Jake Rice had worked 22 runless innings while holding his opponents to a 0.100 batting average.
Rice lived up to his reputation by retiring the first ten Bisons that came to the plate.
Meanwhile, Lipscomb’s starting pitcher freshman Ike Buxton held Kennesaw State to one run through as the first four innings, escaping a number of tight situations leaving eight Owls stranded.
The fifth inning finally opened up the scoring for both teams, as the Bisons and the Owls both added three runs to their total.
For Lipscomb, their three returning second-year seniors, infielders Haddon Adams and Brian Moore and outfielder David Graves, all scored for the Bisons, breaking Rice’s scoreless streak.
The Bisons kept the scoring going in the sixth inning with a two-run homer from junior Maddux Houghton that also brought home senior infielder Carter Smith and gave the Bisons their first lead of the afternoon.
Lipscomb held this lead until the top of the eighth when sophomore infielder Jesse Sherrill singled to score senior infielder Jake Coro and tie the game.
Sophomore closer Tyler Guilfoil came in to end the eighth inning and worked three and a third innings while not allowing any more runs for the Owls to get his second win of the season.
But the Bisons themselves could not find an answer for Kennesaw’s ace closer, Jared Rine, until a walk in the eleventh put Smith on base. Smith was able to steal second, advance to third off of a single from Houghton, and score from sophomore catcher Chaz Bertolani’s walk-off RBI single.
With the win, the Bisons move to (6-6, 1-0) and the Owls fall to (10-6, 3-1) with the loss.
The Bisons continue their series against Kennesaw State Saturday afternoon at 2 PM CT.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics