OXFORD, Alabama – The Lee baseball team's mantra all year long has been, "never say die". It was with that focus in mind that the Flames overcame an 8-1 deficit to fire past Shorter, 19-8 to capture the program's first Gulf South Conference Championship on Tuesday afternoon.
The Flames appeared to have their postseason magic run out early in the contest as they fell behind, 8-1 after three innings. From there however, it was all Lee as it went on to score an incredible 18 unanswered runs to claim the historic victory.
Offensively, the Flames belted out 21 hits with every starter recording a hit and 8 of 9 tallying multiple hits. Every player scored at least one run and 8 of 9 drove in at least one run. Lee scored six in the fifth, five in the sixth, two in the seventh and five more in the ninth.
After a rocking start for GSC Freshman of the Year, Jack Nedrow coach Mark Brew turned to big Sam Fulton. The 6-foot-8 redshirt freshman came on and shut the door as he pitched the final 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs on three hits while striking out six.
Senior Thomas Zazzaro was set on playing more baseball in his career as he homered to start the game and finished 2 for 4 with four RBI and three runs scored. Matthew Batts capped the scoring with a two-run double and finished 3 for 5 and drove in two.
"It's a tremendous job by these guys. We got behind but we never lost our desire to fight and compete and we battled back. Lost in all this excitement was we did this against the conference's best pitcher in Jonathan Pintaro, who is an incredible competitor. I couldn't be more proud of this group. We obviously hit the ball well today and Sam was huge for us coming out of the bullpen and shutting them down."
Joshua Perez had three hits and scored three runs and Dylan Standifer roped three singles and had a pair of RBI. Justen Freeman doubled, singled, and drove in three. Jake Edwards delivered three hits, two RBI and two runs scored.
Kody Krause led the Hawks with a double, triple and three RBI. Jakob Woods had two hits and drove in two. Shorter, playing its sixth game since Friday, used 11
pitchers in the contest.
"No matter what inning it was I just went out there with the mentality to put up zeroes and help the guys win. My arm's hanging a little bit, but I could throw nine more tomorrow if I had to," joked Fulton.
Zazzaro was named the GSC Tournament Most Outstanding Player and Freeman, Perez, and Fulton were named to the All-Tournament team.
"We knew we were a good team earlier in the year when we were struggling," said Zazzaro. "We knew what this team was capable of when it started clicking, we never looked back."
Lee improves to 31-22 on the year and are now 8-1 over its last nine games. Shorter ends its season at 29-22.
"It's amazing we were 12-17 at one time but this team showed so much fight. We made some adjustments in lineup and rotation and flipped Sam to the bullpen, and he's done a tremendous job. But I have to tip my cap to these seniors who led this team through the tough times and never looked back. They showed outstanding leadership. I'm grateful for my coaching staff and how they've kept our guys focused and now we are the team nobody wants to play in region," concluded Brew.
The Flames punched their ticket to their second straight NCAA D2 South Region Championship with the automatic bid for winning the GSC Title. The regional championship will be hosted by Tampa, a team the Flames took 2 of 3 from in the regular season, beginning next weekend.
