OZARK, Mo. — The No. 24 Bellarmine University baseball team may have owned the two most impressive hits in Thursday's Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament opener against Maryville, the Knights just didn't have near enough of them.
Bellarmine didn't record its first hit until the seventh inning as the Saints largely rolled to a 5-2 victory at U.S. Baseball Park. The Knights will face the Indianapolis-Drury loser at 10 a.m. (ET) Friday.
Bellarmine (34-16), the GLVC East's two-seed, seemed particularly rusty at the plate after being off since April 29. Andrew Peters (4-3) carried a no-hitter through 6.1 innings for Maryville (28-23), the West's three-seed. Peters walked five so the Knights had their opportunities and plenty of favorable counts to work with, but they couldn't capitalize for a large portion of the contest.
Senior catcher
Brady Pfaadt finally broke up the no-hitter when he punished a solo homer to right with one out in the seventh. Senior second baseman
Alex Ralph then led off the ninth against reliever Zach Morrisey by smashing another solo shot.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much offense beyond Pfaadt's fifth and Ralph's sixth homers of the season. Junior center fielder
Alex Phillips and junior right fielder
Zac Wiley chipped in a single apiece to round out Bellarmine's four hits.
Maryville, on the other hand, racked up 11 hits, all against GLVC Pitcher of the Year
Eddie Mathis (7-2). The junior left-hander still managed to grind out a respectable outing, allowing four earned runs with six strikeouts in 8.0 innings. The Saints built a 3-0 lead in the third and tacked on one run apiece in the fifth and ninth.
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