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With excellent pitching from the trio of Devin Stanton, Sam Clay, and "Trusty" Dusty Isaacs, and the hitting from Matt Gonzalez, the Yellow Jackets avoided elimination from the NCAA Tournament. They will play another game tonight at 6:00 PM against the loser between the top two seeded teams in the Oxford Regional: Washington and Ole Miss.
Things stayed very even all the way until the ninth inning of the game, which started with a 1-1 tie. Ryan Peurifoy got the inning started off with a single. Mitch Earnest followed that up with a failed bunt attempt which he popped up. Things started to look bad for the Yellow Jackets after Peurifoy got thrown out trying to steal second.
The Yellow Jackets were not going to give the Gamecocks the final out very easily. Daniel Spingola started a streak of four consecutive hits with a single. Mott Hyde singled in the next at-bat, moving Spingola to third base and bringing Matt Gonzalez to the plate. On the 1-0 pitch, Gonzo doubled into right-center to bring home Spingola and Hyde. Gonzo would come home on the next at-bat when Thomas Smith singled into left-center.
"Trusty" Dusty would be able to hold the Gamecocks down in the bottom half of the ninth inning to finish them off, with the Yellow Jackets winning by a final score of 4-2.
Devin Stanton started the game for the Yellow Jackets. In his 5.0 innings, Stanton allowed a run on six hits with three strikeouts. Sam Clay came on in his relief in the sixth inning. He pitched 2.2 innings, allowing no runs on only three hits and struck out a batter.
As of the time I'm writing this (3:28 PM), the starter for tonight's game has not been announced. I'm going to predict, however, that Ben Parr will start tonight's game.
Who do you start tonight? Can we start another winning streak?