Baseball Puts Scare into No. 1 Tennessee Wesleyan in Ninth Inning

Baseball Puts Scare into No. 1 Tennessee Wesleyan in Ninth Inning
Box Score

Team Stats

February 3, 2020

By Mike DeVader, Reinhardt Director of Athletic Communications & Media

Photo Courtesy of Daniel Wilson

ATHENS, Tenn. – The Eagles stood tall against top-ranked and defending national champion Tennessee Wesleyan on their home field Monday afternoon, as the final two outs of the contest for Reinhardt went to the wall and would've tied and taken the lead, respectively, in a 6-3 defeat to the Bulldogs.

In the top of the ninth, Michael Convery came up just short of a 3-run pinch-hit homer that would've knotted the game at 6-6, but after a walk, Malique Foreman put a big scare into the hosts as his shot with bases loaded was hauled in right at the center field fence.

The loss drops the hometown team to 2-2 on the young season.

"Baseball truly is a game of inches…. The game knows though, and when you continually make mistakes on the small things we practice each day, wins don't always happen when you want them to," head coach Jonathan Burton said.  "Again, we were close and rallied again in the last inning, but that isn't the pattern we want to be in. We don't get to where we want to go by being close."

The early innings saw the ball fly out of the yard on multiple occasions as Tennessee Wesleyan took advantage of a baserunning error in the top of the second and capitalized with a solo shot in the bottom of the frame to open the scoring. Keven Jimenez then doubled deep down the left-field line in the fifth frame to tie the score at 1-1, but another Bulldog blast pushed them back ahead heading to the sixth, 2-1.

In the top of the sixth, a leadoff walk turned into two runs and a lead for the Eagles after a Chris Basilio long ball for a 3-2 advantage. Tennessee Wesleyan wouldn't be fazed, however, as it came back in the bottom of the seventh with a 2-run single and two more runs late in the stanza to move back in front, 6-3, after the four-spot.

Xavier Arnette singled to second and Gianmarco Marcelletti got hit by a pitch with one out in the top of the ninth and the stage was set for a dramatic finish. Convery then pulled one to right field that got up against the wall for the second out. Jimenez would earn a hard-fought walk to load the bases before the game ended on a loud out off the bat of Foreman to center.

Basilio, Arnette and Jimenez all collected two hits out the nine total. Four pitchers took the mound in defeat, as the group combined for eight strikeouts.

The Bears of Pikeville (Ky.) are next in line in a four-game series, beginning with a doubleheader at Ken White Baseball Field on Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. 

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