DELAND, Fla. – A record tying classic on day three of the ASUN Baseball Championship ended in defeat for Jacksonville University baseball, who fell 6-1 to #6 seed Stetson on Friday afternoon at Melching Field.
The game went 16 innings, tying the record for the longest game by innings in the tournament's history with a contest featuring the same two schools back in 2015.
"We had our opportunities and in a game like this you have to take advantage of those opportunities and today we didn't," said Head Coach
Chris Hayes.
Jacksonville (32-26) scored first, with
Duncan Hunter driving a solo shot over the left field wall in the second to make it 1-0, but Stetson responded to tie it in the third, putting the first two men on via walks, then advancing them with a sacrifice bunt and scoring on a sacrifice fly.
After that, the pitchers for both teams were the stars of the show. Jacksonville's
Austin Temple pitched 10 innings in his start, allowing only the one run while scattering five hits and striking out five. The right hander from Palm City, Fla. was particularly effective at stranding men on base throughout the afternoon, leaving five men on and retiring leadoff men with some help from double plays and two men caught stealing.
Stetson's Chris Gonzalez allowed only the solo home run and sat down 20 Dolphins in a row at one point, going 11 innings, a new ASUN Baseball Championship record long outing.
JU got runners into scoring into scoring position in the 11th and again in the 14th.
Reagan Wright was hit by a pitch with one out in the 11th, and moved to second on
Dakota Julylia's sacrifice bunt, before a groundout ended the threat. In the 14th, Julylia led off with a single to right and
Scott Dubrule laid down a perfect bunt that he reached on due to indecision from the Stetson pitcher and catcher. A pop-out and a double play again kept JU from winning the game.
In the 16th,
Jagger McCoy walked the leadoff man to start his sixth inning of relief. The runner stole second and scored on an RBI single to right. Stetson then managed to tack on five more before the inning ended, and got the Dolphins to go down 1-2-3 in the ninth to wrap it.
Jacksonville is still alive in the ASUN Baseball Championship, and will face the winner of #2 seed Liberty and #5 North Florida in an elimination game tonight.
