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Morehead State topped Tennessee Tech 4-3 on Sunday to win the 2018 OVC Baseball Championship, its fourth overall title (1983, 1993, 2015, 2018).
This season marks the 40th time the event has been held and the second-straight year the event has been held at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Alabama. The venue is run by the Oxford Parks & Recreation Department which oversaw the completion of the 370-acre sports complex which includes baseball, soccer, softball and track & field/cross country facilities. The first major event hosted at the complex was the 2016 OVC Softball Championship.
Tickets, which can be purchased in person at the park, will be $10 per day or $25 for an all-session pass (up to 14 total games). There is also an $5 a day rate for college students with ID as well as children 6-12 years old (children 5 and under are free). All seats are general admission for the OVC Championship.
The entire tournament is being streamed live and free of charge on the
OVC Digital Network. The games are available in HD and available on any computer, tablet or smart phone, as well as Roku streaming devices. The games will air live and are immediately available on-demand.
Game 14: #3 Morehead State 4, #1 Tennessee Tech 3
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#3 MOREHEAD STATE 4, #1 TENNESSEE TECH 3
OXFORD, Ala. - One for the ages! Morehead State baseball upended No. 18 Tennessee Tech Sunday for the second consecutive day to win the 2018 Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Championship.
Junior left-fielder Niko Hulsizer hit a go-ahead solo homer in the top of the ninth inning off the OVC Pitcher of the Year, Tech's Travis Moths, as the Eagles held on to win 4-3. The Eagles topped TTU 11-6 on Saturday to force the league's "if necessary" game and won it to mark the fourth time since 2005 a team has come back from the consolation bracket to win the event by knocking off the other team twice.
It is Morehead State's fourth OVC Baseball title, joining the teams from 1983, 1993 and 2015.
The Eagles will find out their NCAA Regional site on Monday at Noon ET with the NCAA selection show.
Hulsizer was named tournament MVP, launching his third round-tripper of the tourney and the sixth here at Choccolocco Park in the last two seasons. He was joined on the All-Tournament Team by sophomore lefty Dalton Stambaugh, senior second baseman Braxton Morris, junior outfielder Jake Hammon and freshman lefty Cory Conway.
Stambaugh held the vaunted TTU offense to just three hits and one run in the final 4.2 innings to earn his seventh win of the season. He entered in the ninth yesterday and claimed a save. Starter Garret Rogers gave his team the first 4.1 innings and only surrendered two hits and struck out seven.
The Eagles jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third frame when junior shortstop Reid Leonard singled home Hammon. Hulsizer then lifted a sac fly to right field to push junior catcher Hunter Fain across. An RBI ground out from Morris finished the scoring.
The score held until the fifth when Tech third baseman Trevor Putzig tied it with a three-run homer down the left-field line. The round-tripper was Tech's 128th of the year, setting an OVC team record.
The Golden Eagles put runners in scoring position in the sixth and eighth, but MSU coaxed a strikeout-throwout double play in the sixth. In the eighth, Stambaugh struck out Nick Osborne to end the threat.
Stambaugh coaxed two ground outs and a game-ending strikeout in the ninth.
Leonard, junior first baseman Trevor Snyder, senior left-fielder Tyler Niemann and Hammon finished with two hits each. MSU had 11 hits off three Tech hurlers. Moths was tagged with the loss, just his second in 2018.
2018 OVC BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
Colton Pate, Jacksonville State
Taylor Hawthorne, Jacksonville State
Aaron Ochsenbein, Eastern Kentucky
Nick Howie, Eastern Kentucky
Kevin Strohschein, Tennessee Tech
Trevor Putzig, Tennessee Tech
Nick Osborne, Tennessee Tech
Travis Moths, Tennessee Tech
Dalton Stambaugh, Morehead State
Braxton Morris, Morehead State
Jake Hammon, Morehead State
Cory Conway, Morehead State
Niko Hulsizer, Morehead State
(MVP)