SUNDAY'S SCORES
Little Rock 8, #13 Dallas Baptist 6
Little Rock 10, #1 LSU 4
LITTLE ROCK 8, #13 DALLAS BAPTIST 6
BATON ROUGE, La. - Two weeks ago, the Trojan baseball season almost ended before the postseason began. Now, Little Rock (26-33) is playing in the Baton Rouge Regional Final game.
The No. 4-seeded Trojans held on to beat No. 2 seed Dallas Baptist, 8-6, Sunday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium on the campus of Regional Host LSU.
Now, Little Rock must beat the No.6 overall seeded Tigers twice to win the Regional title and advance to next weekend's Super Regional. The teams square off Sunday night at 8:06 p.m. on ESPNU with Dave Neal and Ben McDonald on the call. If the Trojans beat LSU Sunday night a deciding game would be played at a time to be determined Monday.
The Trojans fell to LSU, 7-0, Friday night in a game that was originally supposed to begin at 2:06 p.m. but didn't start until 7:36 p.m. Tigers star pitcher Anthony Eyanson held the potent Trojans offense in check. The Tigers used ace Kade Anderson in the semifinals against DBU Saturday night so Little Rock won't see either of pitchers, who are both highly touted Major League prospects.
Taking care of Dallas Baptist (41-18) Sunday wasn't easy, but Little Rock led for much of the game.
The Patriots had a runner on and a 2-0 count when reliever Blake Van Cleve entered the game for Zach Busick. Van Cleve struck out Chayton Krauss and then Ben Tryon hit a bullet right at Trojans first baseman Angel Cano who caught it and dove to the bag doubling off Tom Poole, who was hit by a pitch.
Ty Rhoades gave the Trojans the initial lead with a three-run homer in the first inning. DBU cut the lead to 3-2 in the in the second inning and took the lead, 4-3 in the fourth.
However, in the bottom half of the frame, Little Rock responded when Cano homered for the second day in a row – a two-run bomb – followed by a solo shot by Reed Willbanks, who went yard for the second time this year and Little Rock led 6-4.
Zach Henry made it 7-4 in the fifth inning and Little Rock scored its final run of the game in the sixth inning on an error.
Busick picked up the win pitching four innings and give up just two earned runs on three hits. He also struck out 3 and walked 3.
Haley pitched 3.1 innings and gave up 4 earned runs while scattering 5 hits and walking 2 with 2 strikeouts.
LITTLE ROCK 10, #1 LSU 4
BATON ROUGE, La. - Little Rock won its second game of the day against a nationally-ranked opponent and forced a winner-take-all game for the Super Regionals on Monday night.
After knocking off DBU earlier in the day, the Trojans made it 8-1 for themselves in the postseason by topping host LSU 10-4. The Tigers were ranked No. 1 in three Top 25 polls, marking the fourth time an OVC team had beaten a No. 1 ranked team since the beginning fo the 2019 season.
Little Rock (27-33) fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, but led 6-3 after three innings and never gave up the lead.
Angel Cano smacked his third home run in three games – a two-run shot – to cut the lead to 3-2 in the second inning. He followed with a bases-loaded double that cleared the bags in the fourth inning to give the Trojans a 5-3 lead. Little Rock added one more run in the frame when Reed Willbanks grounded out.
LSU (45-15) cut the lead to 6-4 in the fifth inning, but that as close as they got. The Trojans scored four runs in the eighth inning to seal the win.
The Trojans took advantage of 11 LSU walks while banging out 8 hits against five LSU pitchers.
Cano was 2-for-5 with 5 RBI and Cooper Chaplain was 2-for-3 with an RBI and 2 runs scored. Ty Rhoades and Zach Henry each collected a hit and drove in a run, respectively.
Noah Burkey started the game on the mound and pitched 1.2 innings. Brenden Katz relieved him and pitched 1.2 innings giving up just two hits and no runs. He was credited with the win and Malcolm Brown got the save for finishing the game. He gave up three hits and 1 earned run with three strikeouts in 5.1 innings of work. Brown was not only happy about his impact on the biggest win in school history but also his son, Myles, turned a year old Sunday.