By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
 
HATTIESBURG – It was one of those games that a team would like to bottle up and bring out whenever it needs an authoritative win.
 
William Carey did just about anything it wanted Tuesday night in savaging Milligan University 24-5 in the second round of the NAIA National Tournament Hattiesburg Regional at Milton Wheeler Field.
 
Carey (36-14), seeded second in the regional, sits one win away from a second consecutive trip to the NAIA World Series at Lewiston, Idaho, and program's fifth overall.
 
No. 4 seed Milligan dropped to 34-21 after defeating top-seeded Mid-America Christian (Okla.) 4-2 earlier Tuesday in the completion of Monday's first-round game that was suspended due to bad weather.
 
The Crusaders will play at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the championship round against the winner of the elimination game between the Buffaloes and Mid-America Christian, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday.
 
"That's what makes baseball so unique," said Crusader head coach Bobby Halford. "You'll have these kinds of games sometimes, then some days you have trouble scoring a run. So you take each game as it comes.
 
"But I liked the way we came out and set the tone. Now I think they held some of their pitchers out when we got the big lead, and it was good to play a lot of our guys. But, hey, it's 0-0 now and you start all over."
 
WCU played as the visitor because it had been the home team in its first game, while Milligan had been the visitor in its tournament opener, and that paid immediate dividends for Carey.
 
The Crusaders took command from the outset and never looked back, scoring seven runs on three hits, four walks and two hit batters. For the night, WCU was the beneficiary of 13 walks and six hit batters.
 
"I was glad to see some hits start to fall for me to get my confidence back up," said Stinson, who was 3 for 4 with two runs-batted-in. "It came at a good moment.
 
"Being at the top of the lineup, I have to set the tone for the rest of the guys, and you cold it worked out today. Being the visitor, you get to hit first, so you try to set the tone early and build on that."
 
It was Stinson who got it started for Carey, smacking the second pitch of the game from senior right-hander Vincent LaConte up the middle for a single. He took second on a walk to junior Bridley Thomas and scored on a single into rightfield by senior Jake Lycette.
 
A walk loaded the bases and with one out, senior Bailee Hendon was hit by a pitch to score a run, senior Billy Garrity drove in Lycette with a sacrifice fly, a walk forced another run in, and when Jeron Williams, Carey's 9-hole hitter, walked, the Buffs made a pitching change.
 
But junior right-hander Creed Werker fared no better than LaConte (1-1). Stinson greeted Werker with a two-run single, a hit batter loaded the bases again and another walk made it 7-0.
 
"I just have fun hitting behind Bridley and R.J.," said Lycette, who drove in five runs. "R.J. gets on every time; that's no surprise. And Bridley continues to grind out at-bats, getting hit by pitches. I just try to do my part after that, and it worked out."
 
Lycette himself applied the killing blow in the third inning with a mammoth three-run bomb over the rightfield fence.
 
Stinson led off the inning with a single, Thomas was hit by a pitch, and Lycette turned on the next pitch from Werker and sent it high and far.
 
Carey has won 10 straight games, and that streak has been fueled by a surge at the plate.
 
"Everything just started clicking," said Lycette. "We finally started to figure it out at the plate.
 
"At the beginning of the year, we gave a lot of much-needed credit to our pitching staff for getting us a lot of wins when we weren't hitting it. So now we're just trying to right the ship and do our part."
 
Given a big lead at the start, senior left-hander Dario Herrera pitched around an error in the first inning, but was nicked for a run in the second.
 
The Buffaloes put their first two batters of the inning, senior Vasili Kaloudis and sophomore Gaven Jones, on base with singles. With one out, Kaloudis scored on a sacrifice fly after stealing third, but Herrera got a flyout to limit the damage.
 
A double play and an easy comebacker erased a leadoff single in the bottom of the third, but Halford elected to pull Herrera and go with junior Bobby Magee.
 
"We're thinking we might have to use him again in this tournament," said Halford. "We didn't want to burn him up and he was up around 40 pitches.
 
"So we felt with a big lead, let's get him out of there because there might be situation where we need a left-handed arm to get a big out in a critical spot, or a big inning with a lead. We've done that with him in the past."
 
Magee was greeted rudely, with Kaloudis sneaking a fly ball just inside the rightfield foul pole for a home run to lead off, then issued a one-out walk, which was immediately wiped out by another double play.
 
"Defense is huge," said Lycette. "When we were struggling early in the year to hit and hit consistently, we prided ourselves on at least playing good defense to pick up the pitchers for all that they're doing.
 
"We're starting to click on all cylinders. It's a lot of fun."
 
Magee (4-1) was much better in his second inning of work, retiring Milligan in order with two strikeouts, and he was followed by junior right-hander Alik Avila, who pitched two perfect innings, junior right-hander Cory Cook and sophomore Mason Smith, who each went an inning.
 
Although Milligan gave the Crusaders plenty of help, Carey did more than usual at the plate, banging out 21 hits, with everybody hitting, even the reserves who came in when the game got out of hand.
 
"It was big for the top of our lineup to produce today," said Halford. "(Monday), it was the back of the order that set the tone, got some hits that opened it up. Tonight, it was the top of the order that got it done. Then everybody chipped in and it started snowballing on us.
 
"And some of the guys that don't get a lot of at-bats came through. I look at Brady Wilson, great team player for us all year, a senior who's been in and out of the lineup, kind of struggled with the bat, but he's a competitor and he got the job done tonight."
 
Wilson answered the call in the field and at the plate off the bench, making a highlight-reel play at third base in the sixth inning after coming to spell Stinson then hitting a solo home run in the eighth.
 
Offensively, the Crusaders never took their foot off the gas, scoring four more runs in the fourth, two in the fifth, one in the seventh, two in the eighth and four in the ninth.
 
Besides Stinson, fellow seniors Caleb Laird and Preston Ratliff each had three singles, Hendon had a double and two singles, junior Brady Logan had a pair of doubles off the bench and junior Cameron Trosclair had a three-run double in the ninth, also off the bench.
 
Junior Cade Kalehuawehe had a three-run double for the Buffaloes in the bottom of the ninth, but Smith got two groundouts and Lycette finished it off with a sliding catch of a popup near the fence in foul ground.
 
If Carey loses on Wednesday, there will be a winner-take-all championship game at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. But the Crusaders are looking to finish their business on schedule.
 
"We just had to find out who we were and play to our standard," said Stinson. "We've done that the last couple of weeks. I'm excited about this team. I'm ready to finish it off."