LEWISTON, Idaho—Three of the top four seeds remain unbeaten in the 2023 Avista NAIA World Series after two days of play at Harris Field.
Top-seeded Southeastern will take on fourth-seeded William Carey Monday at 6:35 p.m. Pacific/9:35 p.m. Eastern with the winner guaranteed a trip to the semifinal round.
The Fire picked up a 5-2 win over host Lewis-Clark State Saturday night and into Sunday morning behind stellar pitching from
Darien Smith and
Reece Wissinger which combined for 18 strikeouts and stranded nine baserunners.
Wissinger in 8.2 postseason innings has 20 strikeouts and has allowed three hits for a .107 average against.
Chayce Bryant's 20
th home run of the season, a no-doubter to center field in the bottom of the eighth was the difference in the contest.
Adonys Herrera paced the offense with a three-hit game, raising his postseason average to a team-best .514 with 19 hits in his last 10 games with an on-base percentage of .596.
William Carey was a 6-4 winner over Bellevue on Friday, getting a pair of two-run doubles from second baseman Rigoberto Hernandez. RJ Stinson got Carey the lead back with an RBI double, his 18
th of the season, in the eighth to help the Crusaders notch their 48
th win of the year.
Stinson leads the team in average at .402 and also has a team-best 75 RBIs.
The Crusaders pitching staff will be fresh after two days off after the bullpen worked just two innings on Friday. AJ Stinson has a team-high 96 strikeouts in 73.2 innings of work and has held opponents to a .198 average against him this season, posting a 7-2 record in his 13 appearances.
This will be the fourth postseason meeting all-time between the Crusaders and the Fire. Southeastern traveled to Hattiesburg for the opening round in 2017, knocking off WCU 5-2 to advance to the championship, but lost 6-4, then 10-9 in the winner-take-all game. Southeastern took two-of-three during a regular season weekend series in February of 2015.
Just six teams will remain playing NAIA baseball after Memorial Day following two elimination games tomorrow morning. Third-seeded Westmont and seventh-seeded Taylor are the other remaining unbeatens which will play in the game preceding the Fire and the Crusaders.
The winner of the Taylor-Westmont game will meet the winner of the Southeastern-William Carey game on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. Pacific/9:35 p.m. Eastern. The loser will be assigned an opponent in the loser's bracket by the tournament committee and will play at either 11:05 a.m. or 3:05 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday.
