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BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- A pair of Bruin pitchers combined to strand 11 Warrior runners on base as the 5th-seeded Bellevue University baseball team got three home runs to defeat 4th-seeded Midland University 7-1 game one of the 2018 NAIA Opening Round Bowling Green Bracket, hosted by Campbellsville University and the Bowling Green Convention and Visitors Bureau at BG Ballpark.
Bellevue has now won two of the three meetings between the schools this season as they improve to 38-21 overall and advance to play top-seeded Science & Arts at 4 p.m. today
Midland falls to 32-21 and will face the loser of 2nd-seeded Campbellsville and 3rd-seeded Reinhardt in an elimination game at 7:30 p.m. today.
(RV) Bellevue 7, Midland 1
Bruin starter Reid Feeley got all the support he would need in the first inning as Bellevue dispatched Midland 7-1 on Monday morning.
In the Bellevue half of the first, each of BU's first three batters reached; Kory Longaker singled and Riley Baasch was hit by a pitch before JT Patterson launched his 16th dinger of the season.
The score stayed at 3-0 until Gary Dixon hit a long fly ball to center field that dropped just short of the wall for an RBI-triple to plate Patterson.
Austin Alexander and Longaker added solo home runs in the sixth innings, their 11th and ninth long balls of the year, respectively. In between Diego Iribarren delivered a sac fly to score courtesy runner Brandon Salmon – after a Travis Tanaka triple –from third.
Midland finally got on the board in the eighth courtesy of a two-out single from Bailey Bliss. Feeley (8-2) earned the victory with 7.2 innings of work. He allowed just one run while scattering 10 hits. He struck out six, walked two, and stranded eight base runners before giving way to southpaw Colten Barnes who escaped further harm by striking out Nate Calles to end the inning.
Barnes added a scoreless ninth to finish off the victory.
Warrior starter Hayden Bailey (3-3) took the loss allowing four earned runs on five hits over five innings. He struck out three and walked two.
Bellevue saw seven different players record hits with Longaker and Tanaka leading the way with two hits apiece.
