LEWISTON, Idaho—A strong start came to a grinding halt as Southeastern dropped a 13-4 game to fourth-seeded William Carey Monday night.
The Fire will face eighth-seeded Indiana Wesleyan in an elimination game on Tuesday at 6:05 p.m. Eastern.
Josh Pigozzo scored on a wild pitch in the first inning after leading off the game with a walk and getting to third on an
Isaac Nunez double. The inning ended with Nunez on third after a pair of groundouts and a strikeout.
The Crusaders made two outs on the first two pitches they saw from starter
Robb Adams but came back with a double and a homer to take a 2-1 lead to the second. Carey added two more in the third, leading off the inning with a double and picked up an RBI single and an RBI fielder's choice to extend the lead.
Despite five strikeouts over three innings of work, Adams took the loss after allowing four earned runs on seven hits.
Southeastern (56-5) struggled to string hits together against WCU starter AJ Stinson, who improved to 8-2, throwing 156 pitches in a complete game effort with six strikeouts and eight walks.
"You tip your cap to him, but we didn't do a very good job with a lot of first pitch swings and a lot of weak contact that he forced," said coach
Adrian Dinkel. "At the end of the day, we just didn't show up."
The Fire were just 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position.
A pair of doubles in the fourth extended the lead to 7-1.
Juan Pimentel retired the next seven that he saw, but the deficit only shrunk by a run thanks to an RBI single to right by
Stephen Cullen.
Gary Lora also tried to score on the play but was tagged out at the plate.
"I thought Juan did a great job going out there in that situation," said Dinkel. "I think Juan kind of kept it at bay, but unfortunately it just wasn't enough."
Pimentel allowed five earned on five hits over 3.2 innings of work with five strikeouts.
Jake Lycette ended the streak of seven in a row retired with a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the seventh to push the advantage to 8-2. He finished 4-for-4 day with five runs scored. With the bases loaded and two outs, a fielding error brought home two more runs.
The Fire threatened briefly in the eighth with two on and two outs, but a foul out to first base retired the side.
Carey added three in the eighth with a two-run, single to right field and an RBI groundout.
With two outs in the ninth, cranked his 18
th homer of the season over the left field wall for a two-run shot.
Four players were responsible for SEU's eight hits with Nunez, Cullen,
Jose Marcano, and
Nicholas Block with two each. Nunez had two of the three extra base hits by the Fire.
"We need to continue to compete no matter who is in front of us and just win the next game and keep going until they tell us we can't go anymore," said Dinkel.
