By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
 
HATTIESBURG – Now that was more like it.
 
William Carey University took out its frustrations from Wednesday night's stinging opening-round loss in the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament on Middle Georgia State, pounding the Knights 14-1 in seven innings Thursday at Milton Wheeler Field.
 
The Crusaders (41-8) stayed alive in the tournament and will play at 1 p.m. Friday in another elimination game, against the loser of Thursday night's late game between Loyola-New Orleans and Blue Mountain Christian.
 
No. 1 seed Carey needs to win two games Friday to reach the tournament championship round on Saturday. Fourth-seeded Middle Georgia (30-20) still has hopes for an at-large bid to the NAIA National Tournament, but those hopes are slim.
 
Twelfth-ranked (NAIA) WCU rode another vintage effort on the mound from junior right-hander Andrew Shirah, and the vaunted Crusader offense got back on track.
 
"We had a tough one last night," said Carey head coach Bobby Halford. "We still had a chance to win and we didn't do that, and spotted them some runs.
 
"Today, we didn't do that. We jumped out, and our guys that we count on all the time came through early in the game and put it away early. And, of course, Shirah was outstanding. That's why he was Pitcher of the Year."
 
Shirah (9-1) went the distance, scattered five hits, struck out 11 and walked three, and he was backed by an attack that racked the Knights for 14 hits, including three longballs.
 
"Today was a day when I felt like all my pitches were working," said Shirah. "I felt like I could throw any pitch for a strike.
 
"The slider, I could get ahead in the count on it, righties couldn't pick up the spin on the curve, lefties had a tough time with the change-up and the fastball had a lot of movement on it, better than it ever had."
 
Shirah was especially effective against the top of the Middle Georgia batting order. The top four batters in the Knights' order were 1 of 13, with two walks, an error and nine of his 11 strikeouts.
 
"We had faced them earlier in the year (a three-game sweep for WCU), and I remembered them swinging early on fastballs and poking some balls through," said Shirah.
 
"So I knew if I attacked them early with offspeeds, they'd have some ugly swings and I could get to them that way."
 
Shirah was up three runs before he ever threw a pitch. Thanks to losing a coin flip for home team, the Crusaders batted first and they wasted no time scoring three runs, the time it took for junior Jake Lycette's three-run bomb to bang off the scoreboard in rightfield.
 
"It's fun whenever you're pitching for this offense," said Shirah. "This is the most fun I've ever had, and we're just looking to keep it going for awhile."
 
Lycette's home run came after MGS sophomore right-hander Ronald Zayas walked junior R.J. Stinson and senior Bobby Lada to open the inning. Lycette said he had a good scouting report on Zayas from an earlier meeting this season.
 
"I knew he was a power fastball guy, and he gave me one fastball on the outer half (of the plate)," said Lycette. "From facing him earlier in the year, we knew he'd come back to the slider a lot after the fastball, so I was sitting slider."
 
After striking out the side in the bottom of the first inning, Shirah faced plenty of traffic on the basepaths as the Crusaders had another uncharacteristically difficult game in the field, committing four errors.
 
"That was something to work on," said Halford. "I felt like we gave them that run early. But we turned a couple of double plays an our guys got us out of some jams."
 
The Knights put runners at second and third in the bottom of the second inning with one out on an error and a double by sophomore Jaiden Duarte.
 
But Stinson, again playing centerfield in the absence of senior Patrick Lee, ran down a sinking blooper in shallow centerfield and he doubled-up at Duarte at second to end the inning.
 
Two errors in the third loaded the bases with two out, and allowed Middle Georgia its only run, but Shirah got a flyball out to get out of trouble again.
 
"I knew I needed to execute in those situations," said Shirah. "We kind of got short on pitching from yesterday, so I knew I needed to go seven today, and the goal was to get a mercy rule in seven innings in order to advance in this tournament."
 
Lee, the five-year veteran centerfielder who leads the team with home runs, is second in batting average and third in RBIs, will likely only see spot service in the SSAC Tournament, as Carey looks ahead to the NAIA Regional it will be hosting in mid-May.
 
"Pat has been huge for us all year," said Stinson. "Of course, it's next man up for us. But there's no question, we absolutely miss Patrick out there, and hopefully, we can get him back before this is over, or for the regional."
 
Carey more than made do without Lee, scoring three runs in the top of the third. Lycette beat out an infield single to third to lead off the inning, and junior Preston Ratliff singled up the middle, the first of three for the Crusader designated hitter.
 
Juniors Billy Garrity and Brayden Coffey followed with walks, allowing Lycette to trot home from third. Zayas got a strikeout and a flyball to shallow leftfield, but junior Kris Jones drove in two more runs with a bloop double to center.
 
"Last night, I think the problem was we were pressing a lot, left too many runners on base," said Stinson. "I thought we did a good today of coming back and executing on getting those runners in."
 
That offense finally applied the killing blow in the top of the sixth, as WCU sent 12 men to the plate, scoring eight runs on eight hits and a Middle Georgia error.
 
Stinson opened the inning by stroking a gapper to the wall in left-centerfield, and Lada followed with a line drive that cleared the leftfield fence by about a foot as it rocketed out of the park. That brought the day to a close for Zayas (4-3), who struck out five, but also walked five.
 
Facing senior right-hander Caleb Lanoux in relief, Lycette worked the count full and on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, pulled a no-doubt homer into the woods well beyond the rightfield fence. A little bat flip as he trotted down the first base line was the cherry on top.
 
"The second one felt good," said Lycette. "I spoiled some offspeed pitches, so I knew a fastball would come at some point. I saw it, tried to run on it and, thankfully, I got ahold of it."
 
It didn't get any better for Lanoux. Ratliff followed Lycette with a single, Coffey singled, then the Knights threw away a sacrifice from junior Caleb Laird, allowing Ratliff to score and Laird to reach second.
 
Junior Rigoberto Hernandez drove in a run with a single, Jones had an RBI double, giving him three RBIs for the game, and Stinson drove in the final run of the game on a triple into the leftfield corner.
 
Lycette admitted that the Crusaders came out Thursday with a bit of a bad attitude after Wednesday night's 8-7, 11-inning loss to Blue Mountain.
 
"Absolutely," Lycette said. "It's no surprise to anybody that we didn't play up at the level we should be playing at. We're not worried about anybody else, and we didn't do that. So today, we wanted to make a statement that we still know how to play baseball."
 
Lada and Hernandez wiped out a leadoff single in the bottom of the sixth with a double play, and Shirah pitched around a one-out walk in the seventh, finishing with a complete game on 115 pitches.
 
Carey still faces an uphill battle to get to the championship round, having to win twice on Friday. But Halford has his 2-3 starters in senior right-hander A.J. Stinson and junior lefty Dario Herrera lined up ready to go.
 
"We know we've got to play two (Friday) to stay in it," said Halford. "So for Shirah to give us seven innings, and for us to go ahead and win it in seven, was big in a tournament like this.
 
"We'll play them one at a time and that's just how these guys play. I feel good about what we did today and we just need to keep doing what we've been doing."