FORT MYERS, Fla. — In a rematch with the only Sun Conference team to win a series against them this season, Southeastern University exploded offensively and rode a stellar pitching performance to a 16-4 win over Ave Maria University in Friday's Winner's Bracket match-up at the Sun Conference Baseball Tournament.
Southeastern (41-11) used a relentless offensive attack and a lockdown outing from starter Reece Wissinger to advance to Saturday's semifinals. The Fire will face second-seeded Webber International at 11 a.m. on Saturday with a spot in Sunday's championship game on the line.
The heart of the Fire lineup — Alfonso Villalobos, James Strom, and David Castillo — was unstoppable. The trio combined to go 8-for-11 with 12 RBI, eight runs scored, five walks, a triple, and three home runs. Each had an RBI in the first inning as SEU jumped to a 3-0 lead. They never looked back.
Villalobos finished with a single, a two-run homer, four runs scored, three RBI, and two walks. Strom added a single, a triple, three RBI, two runs, and two walks. Castillo delivered the biggest blows of the night with two home runs — a two-run shot in the fourth and a three-run blast in the seventh — to total six RBI and two runs scored.
Wissinger, meanwhile, was dominant on the mound. The senior right-hander allowed just two hits and two walks over seven shutout innings, striking out nine to improve to 7-0 on the season. He needed little help from the bullpen, and Andrew Hansen and Anthony Ortiz saw it through for the win.
SEU's win comes just three weeks after dropping three of four games to Ave Maria (27-25), during which the Fire scored only nine total runs.
The Fire's largest inning came in the fourth when they plated six runs. After Charlie Collins singled in a run, Strom tripled home two more, and Castillo crushed his first home run of the game. Tyler Hinrikus capped the inning with an RBI single to make it 9-0.
Villalobos' two-run homer in the fifth and Castillo's three-run shot in the seventh pushed the score to 14-0. Collins drove in his second run of the night in the eighth, and Connor Hicks added a sacrifice fly to make it 16-0.
Ave Maria avoided the shutout with four runs in the ninth — all without recording a hit — but the damage was already done.
Other notable contributions included Collins' three-hit, two-RBI effort, and multi-hit games from White and Hinrikus. Rossi scored twice and stole a base, and Hicks crossed the plate three times and added an RBI.
