Another healthy dose of offense helped the fifth-seeded Webster University baseball team take down the third-seeded DePauw University Tigers 10-2 in Round 2 of the NCAA Central Regional tournament on Thursday, May 17 in Millington, Tenn. The game came on the heels of an 11-5 Webster victory over Washington University on Wednesday, May 16.
With the win, Webster will face No. 1 seed Birmingham-Southern College, ranked sixth in all of Division-III baseball, on Friday, May 18 at noon CST. Birmingham-Southern is also 2-0 in the Central Region after a 7-4 win over Illinois Wesleyan University and a 6-1 win over Emory University. For free live video of the Webster-Birmingham-Southern game, click here.
An RBI single by senior catcher Matt Moore in the bottom of the second opened the scoring for the Gorloks against DePauw. Webster would add another run in the bottom of the third, and DePauw tacked on its first run in the top of the fourth with a sacrifice fly.
Senior first baseman Tom Henke scored on a wild pitch by DePauw reliever Pete Stuart to make it a 3-1 game in the bottom of the sixth. The Tigers clawed back with an RBI triple to bring their deficit to one run.
The Gorloks’ offense tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the seventh. The runs came on an RBI single by sophomore shortstop Taylor Stoulp that scored junior center fielder Cody Stevenson. After seven innings, it was 5-2 Webster.
Freshman lefty Isaac Behme started the game for the Gorloks. Behme was pulled after 6 2/3 innings, in which he surrendered two runs on six hits while walking four and striking out five.
Like yesterday, a big inning helped to pad a lead for the Gorloks, but this time the outburst came toward the end of the contest. Webster had a five-run eighth inning, which began with another RBI single by Moore. Stoulp added a two-RBI single and went 3 for 4. Henke delivered a two-run double in the inning to score Stoulp and Stevenson to give Webster its ninth and 10th runs. Henke went 3 for 4 with three RBIs on the evening.
Junior pitcher Steven Dooley had already relieved Behme and stayed in to end his second ballgame in as many days. Dooley’s day ended with 2 1/3 perfect innings, all while striking out four.
In other Central Region action, sixth-seeded Illinois Wesleyan eliminated No. 2 WashU with a 3-2 victory. Emory was also eliminated with its five-run loss to Birmingham-Southern. Illinois Wesleyan will take on DePauw in an elimination game on Friday, May 18 at 3:30 p.m.
The winner of the Illinois Wesleyan-DePauw game will play the loser of the Webster-Birmingham-Southern matchup in the double-elimination tournament.
Check back throughout the week for updates on the baseball team from The Journal.
Click here to read about Webster’s Round 1 victory against Washington University.
–Josh Sellmeyer contributed to this report.
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