LAKELAND, Fla.—Southeastern wrapped up its fourth consecutive Sun Conference regular season championship with a 6-1 win over Florida Memorial Saturday afternoon to move to 16-2 in conference play and 44-3 overall.
"That's the goal to give yourself a little bit of breathing room that last weekend so you know where you're at and keep your players healthy and not fighting for something that you could have already controlled," said coach
Adrian Dinkel of wrapping up the regular season title with three games left.
Six different pitchers combined to hold Florida Memorial (16-21, 6-12 SUN) without a hit until there were two outs in the ninth.
JJ Sanchez picked up his fourth win of the season by striking out 11 of the 14 batters he faced in four innings of work. He walked one and hit one, with just one of the 68 pitches he threw put into play.
"We had a long talk about attacking the zone and controlling more than one pitch for a strike and I think we did that as a group," said Dinkel.
Josh Pigozzo got the offense started with an RBI fielder's choice to score
Chayce Bryant, followed by an
Isaac Nunez three-run homer.
Jose Marcano drove in
Stephen Cullen with a single to center in the third to push the lead to five. Pigozzo's second RBI of the game came in the sixth with a single through the left side of the infield.
Hayden Brock,
Darien Smith, and
Reece Wissinger each worked a shutout inning in relief. The Lions scored a run in the eighth, taking advantage of two SEU errors and a balk.
The Fire pitchers combined for 17 strikeouts on the day.
Southeastern will host Thomas on Friday at 1 p.m.
