By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
 
HATTIESBURG – It took all day and most of the night, but in the end, William Carey is moving on in the Southern States Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament.
 
The Crusaders weathered a 4-1/2 hour rain delay Friday to bounce Blue Mountain Christian 15-5 in 8 innings, Carey's second consecutive run-rule victory in the tournament at Milton Wheeler Field.
 
WCU (42-8) advanced to the semifinal round and will face Loyola-New Orleans at 1 p.m. Saturday. The Crusaders will need to beat the Wolfpack twice on Saturday to reach the tournament championship game on Sunday. BMC finished its season 26-25.
 
"We knew that rain was coming," said Carey head coach Bobby Halford. "We were thinking about it all day before about how we were going to do this.
 
"I'm pleased with the way we handled business today. We've got some guys out who are banged up, and the guys behind them have stepped up and played well. It's been a really good effort by everybody."
 
Rain Friday morning pushed the start time for the first game of the day, a 4-3 win for Faulkner over Talladega, to 10:40 a.m., instead of the scheduled 10 a.m. start, and the Carey-BMC game got started at 2:14 p.m.
 
Carey got three good innings out of senior right-hander A.J. Stinson before the decision was made to suspend the game after 41 minutes of play.
 
Good thing they did, too, because minutes after the tarp was spread over the infield, an hour-long squall passed through the area that left large swaths of the outfield covered in standing water.
 
"I think I pitched today, didn't I?" said Stinson jokingly. "I was just focused on keeping my composure out there. I some things differently than I've been doing, and it worked out for my today."
 
Stinson did not allow a hit or a walk, and struck out three. He was, however, touched for an unearned run in the top of the third.
 
The Toppers got their leadoff batter on in the third on an infield error, and the runner scored on a stolen base, a groundball to the right side and a suicide squeeze play.
 
But the Crusaders tied it right back on the first pitch of the bottom half of the inning, a line drive home run off the bat of senior Bobby Lada.
 
"I saw it pretty well at the head, and I got a decent barrel on it," said Lada. "It just went out."
 
Stinson left the game after throwing just 32 pitches, so if Carey makes it to the final Sunday, he would be available for short duty.
 
"I could have come back, but the smart choice was not to come back," said Stinson. "I'd most definitely be able to come back on Sunday."
 
Indeed, with the NAIA Regional looming in 10 days, Halford is playing the long game with his top pitchers.
 
"We knew when A.J. went out there to start that we weren't going to bring him back out if we had to stop it," Halford said. "We've got too much going on here in two weeks with the regional. We know we're in the next tournament."
 
Junior left-hander Dario Herrera got the ball when play resumed in the fourth inning, and he picked up where Stinson left off, at least in his first two innings of work. Herrera pitched around a two-out walk in the fourth and struck out the side in order in the fifth.
 
That was plenty of time for the Crusaders to get their bats warmed up, as they scored two runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to take a 5-1 lead.
 
"Before hitting BP during the break, and we were talking about mechanics," said Lada. "So, I felt like we were locked in right after we came back out.
 
"There's not a weak spot in this lineup and we've got great chemistry on this team. We definitely needed this win, because they got us last time, and this time we got them."
 
Unlike Carey, Blue Mountain elected to return junior left-hander Jackson Siler (2-3) to the mound despite throwing 60 pitches and sitting through the rain delay.
 
Still, he got two quick outs in the fourth before Carey began stirring up trouble. Junior Kris Jones looped a single inside the rightfield line to get things started.
 
Jones went to second on a single by junior R.J. Stinson and both runners scored when Lada doubled into the leftfield corner.
 
Same thing in the fifth. Siler got two outs, then Carey erupted. Junior Brayden Coffey drew a walk and junior Rigoberto Hernandez hit a high fly to left that carried over the fence for a two-run home run.
 
The Toppers had one more comeback in them, and it came in the sixth.
 
With one out, junior Gavin Coles drew a walk and senior Reiley Tate singled. Herrera got a strikeout, but senior Alex Frillman deposited a 2-1 fastball into the trees beyond the leftfield fence for a three-run home run.
 
"We knew Dario was going to be the starter for the next game," said Halford. "And he did a good job on short notice. So it was really his scheduled start anyway."
 
But Carey's offense was simply too much for Blue Mountain, and the Toppers finally broke in the bottom of the seventh.
 
Coffey led off with a single up the middle and Hernandez poked a double into the left-centerfield gap, sending the runner to third, and the run came in on a sacrifice fly by junior Caleb Laird.
 
Jones walked and stole second to put runners at second and third, and they both scored on R.J. Stinson's sharp single to left. Lada got Stinson home on a double in the left-centerfield gap and he scored on junior Preston Ratliff's triple to the fence in leftfield.
 
After going 0 for 5 with a walk in the earlier meeting against BMC in the tournament, Ratliff is 6 of 10 in the Crusaders' last two games.
 
"I really haven't done much," said Ratliff. "I've been working on simplifying my swing, putting the ball in play, hit hard line drives, do whatever I can to get on base."
 
Blue Mountain got a run back in the top of the eighth and had a chance for more. Tate singled to lead off and senior Austin Beech doubled to right-centerfield to drive in the run.
 
After Herrera walked Frillman, Halford turned to freshman right-hander Lane Jarreau, who got two quick outs then loaded the bases with another walk. But his last pitch of the night was a foul out behind first base.
 
Herrera (8-0) gave up four runs on four hits, he struck out nine and walked four. Jarreau, a true freshman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is one more piece in the Crusaders' deep bullpen.
 
"He's a young kid with a live arm and he throws strikes," said Halford. "That's the biggest thing about him, and he competes well. He's valuable out of the pen for us, and we were even thinking about starting him."
 
Carey brought the game to an early end in the bottom of the eighth with five runs. Coffey was hit by a pitch leading off, and a throwing error on a pickoff attempt allowed courtesy runner Ty Little to reach third. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Hernandez, his third RBI of the night.
 
Laird smacked the next pitch up the middle for a single, and Jones hit the one after that over the leftfield fence for a two-run homer. Stinson watched a ball, then sent the next pitch he saw into the night for a solo shot.
 
Lada reached on an error, junior Jake Lycette singled up the middle, and Ratliff was walked intentionally to load the bases and put the force on.
 
But after all of that – the rain, the hits, the strikeouts, the home runs – it ended anticlimactically when junior Billy Garrity was hit by a pitch, allowing Lada to trot home with the walk-off run.
 
Halford said Ratliff will get the ball to start against Loyola on Saturday. If the two teams have to play again, he said there are several options on the table, including Jarreau and junior right-hander John Snyder.
 
"I've always done both (hitting and pitching)," said Ratliff. "I really like it, and I want to keep doing both as long as I can."
 
Should Loyola win the early game and Mobile defeats Faulkner in the day's opening game, the championship game would be played around 6 p.m. Saturday. Any if-necessary games on Saturday will push the championship game to Sunday.