April 28, 2007

GEORGETOWN, Texas -- With Millsaps on the brink of elimination after a suprising 14-5 opening-round loss to Austin, the Majors strung together back-to-back wins over Southwestern, 12-10, and No. 25 Rhodes, 11-1, to escape elimination on Saturday and advance to the championship game on Sunday -- a rematch with the Kangaroos.

After falling into the loser's bracket after dropping Game 1 in a double elimination tournament, the Majors will have to defeat Austin twice on Sunday to capture their third consecutive conference title and advance to an NCAA Division III Regional.

Game 1 ... Against tournament-host Southwestern, eight different Majors recorded a hit and four different batters posted multiple RBIs, including designated hitter Derrik Boland who went 2-for-3 with four RBIs and a two-run blast, first baseman Luke Morrow who drove in the eventual game-winning runs on a two-RBI double and Justin Carter who went 2-for-4 with his second triple of the year.

In addition, Hunter Owen was a perfect 2-for-2 with two RBIs including a leadoff double (20) in the top of the second to break Kirk Kinard's single season record of 19 doubles.

Millsaps (35-10) rallied from a 4-1 deficit to eventually tie the game at 5-5 in the sixth off Boland's bomb before the two teams battled it out in a slugfest in the ninth. The Majors plated six runs in the top of the ninth to take a 12-6 lead before the Pirates rallied for four runs of their own in the inning to make the final margin 12-10.

Junior right-hander Brandon Ingram picked up his first save of the season while tossing the final 2/3 innings and senior Brent Buffa improved to 7-2 on the season despite giving up 10 runs off 10 hits in 8 1/3 on the mound. Gruetzner picked up the loss for SU to fall to 2-2.

Michael Murphy did the offensive dirty work for Southwestern, blasting a two-run shot over the left centerfield wall in the first on a 2-for-5 afternoon with four RBIs.

Game 2 ... Millsaps took advantage of five extra base hits, including Jason Hadley's walk-off three-RBI double, and Ingram picked up a season-high seven strikeouts in his second complete game performance of the season to improve to 8-1 as the Majors run-ruled No. 25 Rhodes, 11-1, in seven innings.

The Majors plated a run in 5 of 7 innings, along with four in the fourth, and held the Lynx to only a single run in the sixth off an RBI-double from catcher Matt Beesley to improve to 18-0 when holding opponents to two runs or less.

Carter turned in his second multi-hit game of the day, going 3-for-4 with a double and three RBIs while teammate Nick Crawford picked up a pair of stolen bases and his NCAA leading 98th career hit-by-pitch.

No. 2 seed Millsaps (2-1) will play the No. 3 seed Austin (2-0) at 11 a.m. on Sunday for the SCAC Championship. Join hosts Derrel Palmer and Kevin Maloney live in the Jackson-Metro area on 1240 AM or online at www.espnradio1240.com.