OZARK, Mo. — It was an exhilarating combination. The No. 24 Bellarmine University baseball team reached a milestone and, at the same time, remained in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.
On Saturday at U.S. Baseball Park, the Knights tied the single-season program record for wins in a 6-1 victory over Maryville in an elimination game behind a superlative pitching performance from sophomore right-hander
Jacob Nagel.
Bellarmine (36-16) will meet Quincy at 8:30 (ET) tonight. The Hawks are 2-0 in tournament play, defeating Southern Indiana 5-4 and Missouri S&T 11-9.
Bellarmine's 36 victories tie the 1979, 1980 and 2008 squads for the most in program history. The GLVC East's two-seed avenged an opening-round loss to the GLVC West's third-seeded Saints (28-25). The Knights won three of four games against Maryville this year including a doubleheader sweep in the regular season.
Nagel (6-3) tossed a career-high 8.0 innings and yielded one earned run on six hits while striking out five against just one walk. The righty didn't allow more than one base runner to reach in an inning until the sixth when the Saints scored their lone run. Sophomore right-hander
Anthony Ethington sewed up the win with a scoreless ninth, including a strikeout to end it.
Bellarmine amassed 11 hits and steadily produced its runs, plating one run each in the second, third, seventh and eighth that bracketed a two-run fifth. Senior shortstop
Drew Greenwood, senior left fielder
Griffin Neuer, freshman designated hitter
Matt Higgins and junior center fielder
Alex Phillips all collected two hits. Neuer registered three RBIs and Higgins contributed two.
Things started out ominously for Bellarmine in the second with two strikeouts, but senior catcher
Brady Pfaadt extended the inning after being hit by a pitch and Higgins brought him home with the first run after whacking a triple.
The Knights went up 2-0 in the third after Phillips led off with a single, stole third and scored on a ground out by freshman first baseman
Jacob Mulcahy. Bellarmine got some help in the fifth as the inning was prolonged when a would-be third out was erased after a wild pitch on a strikeout. Neuer took full advantage by lacing a two-run single for a 4-0 lead.
Maryville regrouped with a run in the sixth, but Neuer pushed Bellarmine's advantage back to four with an RBI double in the seventh. Higgins capped the scoring with an RBI double in the eighth.
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