Pitching and timely hitting carried the No.3-ranked Lee baseball team to a pair of wins on Saturday afternoon at Larry Carpenter Stadium and Olympic Field. The doubleheader 5-0, 3-2 victories gave the Flames the 3-0 series sweep over University of Montevallo.
The three wins improved the surging Flames to 16-2 overall and 15-1 in GSC play. The battling Montevallo club dropped to 9-11 overall and 6-11 in league play. Lee will return to action on Tuesday at 4 p.m. when they host Carson-Newman and will be seeking revenge for one of their two losses.
"Overall, this weekend our pitching staff carried us," pointed out Coach Mark Brew. Throwing two shutouts and allowing zero earned runs in 27 innings is an amazing accomplishment. Montevallo matched us most of weekend."
Game 1 – Lee 5, Montevallo 0
The Flames struck quickly as Thomas Zazzaro drilled his first home run of the season to lead off the first inning. In the second, Lee went up 2-0 when Alan Smith doubled and later scored. Two more runs went up on the board in the third. Smith singled and Dylan Standifer was hit by a pitch. They both scored on a one-base hit by Landon Silver. The final tally came in the fifth when Standifer homered over the left-field wall.
Chandler Ring pitched six innings of one-hit ball. He struck out nine and allowed five walks in gaining the win and improved his record to 3-0. Alan Rickman came on to give the Flames another promising performance over the next three innings and picked up the save. He allowed a couple of hits, fanned three and did not issue a free pass.
"Ring really stepped up and gave us an awesome start in place of Seth Konkel, who is the usual weekend starter but was unable to go. Rickman continues to provide us quality innings out of the bullpen," noted Brew.
Zazzaro had a triple to go along with his four-bagger and finished with two RBI. Smith had three hits and scored a run. "At the plate, Zazzaro gave us a huge lift early and had great at bats all day. Smith had some really good swings also," commented Brew. "We finally got some big two-out hits."
The Falcons had only three hits including a double by Alex Langford. Hogan Isbell was the starting and losing pitcher. In 5.2 innings he gave up eight hits and five earned runs.
Game 2 – Lee 3, Montevallo 2
After struggling in his last two starts, Alex Harper-Cook was outstanding over 7.1 innings. The lefty allowed just four hits, one earned run, struck out seven and walked two in improving his record to 3-0. Michael Hendricks worked the final 1.2 innings, surrendering a hit and an unearned run.
"I was really impressed by Harper-Cook today. He hasn't thrown well the last two weekends, but he was in command all day," noted Brew. "Hendricks came out of pen and got into some issues not of his own doing, but he really did a great job navigating through it."
Runs were hard to come by again in the second contest. The Flames finally broke through on a two-run homer over the right-field wall by Ryan Beamish that scored Justen Freeman, who had earlier singled in the inning. The third and final run came in the seventh. Jared Demkowicz doubled and scored on a two-base hit by the hot-hitting Zazzaro.
Zazzaro was the only Flame with two hits and of course Beamish delivered the two-run blast. "We were able to grab enough offense off Beamish and Zazzaro's bats in game two to claim the win," concluded Brew.
The Falcons were held scoreless until Ty Wooten and Khalid Collymore walked. A huge error by the Flames allowed two runs to score and cut the margin to 3-2. Montevallo threatened again in the top of the ninth when Asa Awbrey doubled but was stranded when Hendricks got a fly ball out and a strikeout to end the drama.
Reed Latimer was the only Montevallo player to post two of his team's five hits.
Zach Toth was the starting and losing Falcon pitcher. In 3.2 innings he gave up two earned runs. Joel Cheatwood came on for an inning before Chandler Ingram help keep Montevallo in the contest with 3.1 innings of quality work. He gave up an earned run and allowed three hits.
