GAFFNEY, SC – The UVA Wise baseball team closed out the regular season with a series sweep by Limestone Friday and Saturday. The Saints won on Friday 4-1 and took both games of the Saturday doubleheader by 6-2 and 8-0 scores.
Despite the losses, the team is still on track for the program's first-ever berth in the South Atlantic Conference Tournament as they are currently tied for sixth with Wingate and Newberry. The top eight teams will play in the tournament. Wingate has two games at Emory & Henry on Sunday so if they win at least one the Cavs will drop to the seven seed. UVA Wise and Newberry are both done with regular season play so the Cavs will hold a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Wolves. Lincoln Memorial are one game behind, but the Railsplitters have a doubleheader against league-leading Catawba and as the Cavs also hold the tiebreaker over LMU they would need to win both games over Catawba tomorrow to pass the Cavs.
INSIDE THE MATCHUP
Result Game One: Limestone 4, UVA Wise 1
Result Game Two: Limestone 6, UVA Wise 2
Result Game Three: Limestone 8, UVA Wise 0
Records: UVA Wise (26-21, 14-16 SAC); Limestone (25-24, 17-13 SAC)
Location: Gaffney, SC | Founders Field
GAME ONE
- The Cavs scored first in the fifth inning as
DJ Dickson singled, scoring
Jake Weaver.
- The Saints answered back with three runs in the seventh and a solo home run in the eighth to take the 4-1 win.
- Dickson led the team as he went 2-4 with a RBI.
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Spencer Powell had a decent game as he pitched six shutout innings with five strikeouts, but left the game in the seventh inning.
GAME TWO
- Limestone took the 1-0 lead with a run in the bottom of the third.
DJ Dickson tied the game up in the next half inning as he scored via a single by
Jaden Ruehling. The Saints then extended their lead with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth and a run in the fifth.
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Morgan Miller would score the second run of the game for the Cavs when he came home off a single to center field by
Nick Badgett. LU would add insurance runs in the seventh and eighth innings as they went on for the 6-2 win and the series victory.
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Jacob Boyle was 2-4 for the game to lead the Cavs, while Dickson and Miller both went 1-3 with a run.
GAME THREE
- Limestone has had a lot of adversity recently as the school has announced they are in severe financial trouble and this will probably be their final year with athletics, at least for several years assuming they don't close. So game three is probably the final home game in program history for the Saints.
- With that added motivation the Saints also would seal a first-ever berth in the SAC Tournament with a game three win. They achieved that goal by holding the Cavs to only three hits in the 8-0 win.
- Badgett, Dickson, and
Jeb Hurst accounted for the three Cavalier hits in the game.
UP NEXT
The team will now have to wait for the other SAC teams to finish their weekend series before the tournament field is announced. Because of rain on Thursday and Friday the Catawba/LMU series, Lenoir-Rhyne/Anderson series, and Wingate/Emory & Henry series will all wrap up tomorrow. The Coker/Tusculum series in Greeneville was pushed back to a Sunday/Monday series, so the Cavs will probably not know their fate, where they are playing, or even who they are playing until Monday evening.
