The 2018 Conference USA Baseball Championship, presented by The First, resumes Saturday with at least three games on the schedule. All of today's games are on ESPN3 and live stats through StatBroadcast are available on the C-USA Baseball Championship Central page.
Championship Central
FLORIDA ATLANTIC 9, RICE 8 (10 inn.)
BILOXI - Wayne Graham’s last baseball game in a Rice uniform turned out to be one for the books, though it did not turn out the way he and his team would have liked.
Jared DeSantolo’s double into the right-field corner scored Eric Rivera from first base with the game-winning run as Florida Atlantic walked off with a 9-8 victory in 10 innings in a semifinal of the 2018 Conference USA Baseball Championship, presented by The First.
With the win, third-seeded FAU (40-16-1) earned a first-ever spot in a C-USA baseball championship title game and will be playing for their first postseason baseball championship since winning the Sun Belt Conference tournament title in 2013.
“It’s an amazing night, an amazing night,” FAU John McCormack said. “(Friday), when we got done, I told them, ‘You can make May 26, 2018, something that we talk about for the next 25 years, and we are.
“This day, and everything that we’ve been through, to beat these guys twice, it’s amazing, just amazing.”
FAU awaits the winner of Sunday morning’s other semifinal showdown between top-seeded Southern Miss and fourth-seeded Charlotte. The 49ers forced a second game with the Golden Eagles with a 7-4 win earlier Saturday evening.
With the win, FAU also likely wrote the final page of Graham’s career at Rice.
“It’s bittersweet,” McCormack said. “Our league would not be where it is without Wayne Graham and Rice baseball. We owe him a debt of gratitude for that.”
The 82-year-old Graham did not have his contract renewed, and will leave after 27 years at the helm. By falling twice Saturday, Rice saw a streak of consecutive NCAA regional berths snapped at 23.
“They gave a great effort and I appreciate everything they did,” Graham said. “Everybody volunteered to come out of the bullpen and do everything they could. We just didn’t have quite enough (Saturday).
“I’m tired tonight, but we’ll re-evaluate tomorrow. Life goes on. Life goes on.”
A three-run rally in the third inning erased an early FAU lead, and Rice held the lead through the top of the eighth inning, building it up to 8-5.
But FAU tied the game in the bottom of the eighth on an RBI-double by Rivera, and run-scoring grounder by DeSantolo and Joe Montes’ run-scoring single.
After a scoreless ninth inning, Rice (26-31-2) loaded the bases in the top of the 10th but came up empty.
Matt Canterino (7-5), who was the starting pitcher in Rice’s championship opener, walked Rivera to open the bottom of the 10th inning, and DeSantolo followed with the game-winning hit.
Zach Schneider (6-1) got the game’s final two outs to pick up the pitching win.
DeSantolo and Montes each had three hits and drove in two runs for FAU.
Rice’s Ford Proctor became the championship’s third player with five hits in a game, going 5-for-6 with a run scored and two RBI.
CHARLOTTE 7, SOUTHERN MISS 4
BILOXI - Southern Miss found itself on the other side of the looking glass Saturday night at MGM Park.
A year after the Golden Eagles rallied in the bottom of the ninth inning with a walk-off home run against Charlotte to force a win-or-go-home contest, the 49ers returned the favor on the fourth day of 2018 Conference USA Baseball Championship presented by The First.
Second baseman Tommy Bullock’s three-run, walk-off home run capped a four-run rally in the bottom of the ninth inning as the fourth-seeded 49ers topped the top-seeded Golden Eagles 7-4.
“We talked about that on the bus on the way down here,” Charlotte coach Loren Hibbs said. “We were three outs away from being in the championship game last year and (2018 staff ace Josh) Maciejewski was the guy who gave up the home run, and it messed with him.
“But he made the decision, along with our team, that we wanted to try and get back to this point again and have a chance to be able to compete again.”
With their first victory over USM since 2014, the 49ers (34-23) forced a second game with the Golden Eagles (41-16) at 9 a.m. Sunday. The winner will advance to the Conference USA title game scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday.
The USM-Charlotte winner will face the winner of Saturday’s late rematch between third-seeded Florida Atlantic and seventh-seeded Rice.
FAU defeated Rice 7-4 earlier Saturday to force the second game between the two in the double-elimination bracket.
In 2017, USM had come out of the elimination bracket to face an unbeaten Charlotte, and had to beat the 49ers twice in order to play for the C-USA baseball crown.
Taylor Braley hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Golden Eagles scored five runs in their final two at-bats to claim a 6-5 victory against the 49ers in the initial game.
Flash forward a year. The unbeaten Golden Eagles were clinging to a 4-3 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth inning and Charlotte, which had come out of the elimination bracket, was down to its last three outs.
But Todd Elwood chopped an infield single against USM reliever J.C. Keys (3-5), moved to second, the third on a pair of wild pitches.
After third baseman Jackson Mims walked, left fielder Drew Ober hit a grounder to the right side that scored Elwood with the tying run and sent Mims to second..
A single by shortstop Hunter Jones singled sent Mims to third and Keys to the dugout in favor of Matt Wallner.
Bullock, who had one home run coming in to the game, lifted Wallner’s second pitch over the wall in left field, the same spot Braley had hit his homer the year before.
“It’s déjà vu or whatever you call it,” USM baseball coach Scott Berry said. “Braley does it to them, and (Bullock) does it to us. It’s baseball.
“It’s a great game, it really is, because you never know what’s going to happen..
The 49ers rallied from two-run deficits twice, using seven pitchers to contain USM’s offensive outbursts.
USM wound up with nine hits and received eight walks from Charlotte pitchers. But the Golden Eagles stranded 14 baserunners, including nine in scoring position.
“We missed on some opportunities there early, and their pitchers minimized some things,” Berry said.
In the first inning, USM were the beneficiaries of four walks, including designated hitter Daniel Keating’s free pass with the bases loaded. But the Golden Eagles left the inning with the bases loaded and 1-0 lead.
USM took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning when Keating singled, was sacrificed to second and scored on Matthew Guidry’s single.
But the Golden Eagles stranded runners at third with one out in the fourth inning and second and third with no outs in the fifth inning.
By then, the 49ers had tied the game 2-2. Catcher Zack Smith caught hold of Walker Powell offering and smashed it off the scoreboard past the right-center field fence to get Charlotte within 2-1 and a run-scoring single by center fielder Reece Hampton gave the 49ers its second run.
USM surged back ahead in the sixth. Shortstop LeeMarcus Boyd singled with one out and scored when left fielder Gabe Montenegro tripled into the right-field corner. Moments later, Montenegro scored on a wild pitch to give the Golden Eagles a 4-2 lead.
Charlotte scored an unearned run in the seventh inning to set up the ninth-inning drama.
Powell pitched well for USM, allowing three runs (two earned) on eight hits. He walked no one and struck out five.
Phillip Perry (2-3) picked up the win by getting the final two outs in the top of the ninth inning.
FLORIDA ATLANTIC 7, RICE 4
BILOXI - Florida Atlantic got a bit of revenge Saturday afternoon and set up a win-or-go home situation after taking down Rice, 7-4 Saturday afternoon in the 2018 Conference USA Baseball Championship, presented by The First.
“Stay tuned for the sequel,” FAU coach John McCormack said. “Owls vs. Owls: Act III.”
Third-seeded FAU (39-16-1) and seventh-seeded Rice (26-30-2) will meet again in Saturday night’s final game at MGM Park. The winner earns a spot in Sunday’s C-USA title game.
“It should be a good game,” Rice coach Wayne Graham said. “We’re all going to use everything we’ve got.”
Rice beat FAU 5-4 Thursday in a second-round game, but FAU came back through the elimination bracket, knocking out second-seeded Louisiana Tech Friday before staying alive by handing previously undefeated Rice its first loss of the tournament.
Rice led 1-0 before FAU put up four runs in the third inning. One runs scored on a wild pitch, another on a run-scoring single by designated hitter Jared DeSantolo and two more on a double by third baseman Joe Montes.
But Rice loaded the bases off FAU starter Blake Sanderson in the sixth inning, and Ford Proctor’s double off the wall in right-center field cleared them and tied the score 4-4.
FAU wasted no time coming back with two runs in the top of the seventh, with the tie-breaking run scoring on a double-play grounder. Left fielder Eric Rivera drove in the second run with a single.
Rivera added an insurance run in the ninth with an infield single that scored shortstop Tyler Frank.
FAU reliever Weston Clemente (2-0) picked up the win by allowing a hit before getting the last out in Rice’s big sixth inning. Matt Harris picked up his third save of the season by allowing two hits over three shutout innings.
Jackson Parthasarthy (3-5) took the loss, allowing two runs on five hits over 4 1/3 innings.
Montas had three hits for FAU, while right fielder Jordan Poore and Ribera had two each. Rice got two hits apiece from right fielder Bradley Gneiting, third baseman Braden Comeaux and center fielder Ryan Chandler.
CHARLOTTE 10, UTSA 4
BILOXI - In the third inning of Saturday morning’s elimination baseball game between Charlotte and UTSA, Roadrunners center fielder Trent Bowles hit a two-out grand slam home run that erased a 2-0 49ers’ lead.
And Charlotte merely shrugged.
“We didn’t freak out about that,” Charlotte coach Loren Hibbs said. “We just continued to play.”
Indeed.
The 49ers scored eight unanswered runs, including five in the seventh inning, to knock off UTSA, 10-4 at MGM Park in the final, third-round game of the 2018 Conference USA Baseball Championship, presented by
The First.
The fourth-seeded 49ers (33-23) will come back Saturday evening to take on top-seeded Southern Miss (41-15) at 7:30 p.m. If the 49ers win, the two teams have to play again on Sunday morning to determine that side of the bracket’s representative in the championship’s championship game.
If the Golden Eagles win, they would advance to Sunday’s 1 p.m. title game.
While Charlotte and USM did not play during the regular season, the 49ers and Roadrunners were quite familiar with one another, meeting for the fifth time in 10 days.
The Roadrunners, who defeated Charlotte 11-1 in an opening-round game Thursday seemed to have seized the momentum early Saturday to possibly win for a fourth time over the 49ers.
Charlotte had scored with two outs in the top of the third inning on a single by second baseman Tommy Bullock and a balk by UTSA starter Nathan Alexander to grab a 2-0 lead.
The Roadrunners (32-24) responded in the bottom of the inning off Charlotte starting pitcher Matt Brooks.
Catcher Garrett Moon and first baseman Ben Brookover singled, and after each moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt, second baseman Bryan Arias walked to load the bases.
Brooks got a strikeout for the second out, but Bowles lifted a fly ball that cleared the fence in the right-field corner just inside the foul pole for his eighth home run of the season and a 4-2 UTSA lead.
“Hey, it was a good pitch,” Hibbs said. “Brooks made a good pitch, and the kid put a good swing on it. Fly ball to right field, hit it in the right spot.
“But I’m proud of the guys. It’s just who we are. We compete every time we get a chance to go out and play.”
The 49ers pulled within 4-3 in the fifth inning on center fielder Reece Hampton’s sacrifice fly, and then regained the lead with a pair of runs in the sixth inning.
Third baseman Jackson Mims reached second base on a throwing error, went to the third on a fly ball and scored on right fielder Todd Elwood’s double. Elwood stole third base and then scored on a wild pitch to give the 49ers a 5-4 lead.
“They just had some quality at-bats, just some little things that they did well, controlling the bat that got them back in the ballgame,” UTSA coach Jason Marshall said. “Sometimes, it just comes down to those little things and trying to get separation, and keep that momentum on your side.
“We didn’t do it and they kind of just took it away from us.”
Charlotte iced the game in the seventh with two outs, pushing across five runs on a two-run double by left fielder Drew Ober, a two-run single by Elwood and first baseman Dominick Cammarata being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
All in all, the teams combined to score 12 of the game’s 14 runs with 2 outs.
Charlotte reliever Jonah Patten (4-1) picked up the win, allowing just three hits over the final five scoreless innings. He walked two and struck out six.
UTSA’s second pitcher, Palmer Wenzel (6-2), took the loss after allowing two unearned runs on one hit in 1 1/3 innings. He walked one, struck out one.
Bullock, Elwood and designated hitter Zack Smith each had two of the 49ers’ nine hits, and each scored two runs. Mims also scored twice.
Shortstop Joshua Lamb had three of the Roadrunners’ eight hits.
Revised Game Schedule
Wednesday, May 23 (available on ESPN3)
Game 1 (3) Florida Atlantic 7, (3) FIU 4
Game 2 (7) Rice 6, (2) Louisiana Tech 2
Thursday, May 24 (available on ESPN3)
Game 4 (5) UTSA 11, (4) Charlotte 1
Game 3 (1) Southern Miss 2, UAB 0
Game 5 Louisiana Tech 7, FIU 5
Game 6 Charlotte 2, UAB 0
Friday, May 25 (available on ESPN3)
Game 7 Rice 6, Florida Atlantic 4
Game 8 Southern Miss 5, UTSA 3
Game 9 Florida Atlantic 8, Louisiana Tech 6
Saturday, May 26 (available on ESPN3)
Game 10 Charlotte 10, UTSA 4
Game 11 Florida Atlantic 7, Rice 4
Game 12 Charlotte 7, Southern Miss 4
Game 13 Rice vs. Florida Atlantic 9:00p
Sunday, May 27 (televised by CBS Sports Network)
Game 14 Charlotte vs. Southern Miss 9:00a (if necessary)
Championship Game 1:00p
All Times Central
Tickets are on sale now and available by calling the MGM Park box office (877-344-2174) or through TicketFly.com (
http://www.ticketfly.com/venue/21961-mgm-park/).