OXFORD, Ala. – The Lee baseball team settled for a third-place finish in the Gulf South Conference tournament that was staged at Choccolocco Park. The Flames suffered back-to-back losses to West Florida 12-1 and Delta State 5-4 on Monday. Lee dropped to 36-16 and will wait on the selection show which will come out on Sunday evening to see if their season continues.
In the opening contest, the Argonauts overwhelmed the Flames by putting four runs on the board in the fourth inning and added five more markers in the fifth. At the same time, they limited Lee's usually hard-hitting attack to only one run on five hits in the 12-1 loss.
The Flames used three pitchers. Dylan Van Meeteren (6-3) worked four innings and was charged with the loss. He allowed seven earned runs, walked three and struck out three. Braylon Hall came on for 2/3 of an inning and gave up four hits and two earned runs while Coates Massey pitched one inning and surrendered two hits, one earned run, fanned two and walked two. Braden Wrapp (7-0) limited Lee to only five hits. He gave up an earned run, struck out seven and walked two in picking up the victory.
Landon Franklin homered for Lee's only run. Luke Collier, Isaiah French, Casen Youngblood and JJ Williams had the other hits. West Florida had 17 hits, and seven went for extra bases. Zack Stokes had four hits including a home run, double and two singles. Alex Urias had three hits and drove in three runs while Tyler Brobst doubled, tripled, added a single and collected two RBI.
Delta State 5, Lee 4
The contest went back and forth until the Statesmen took the lead for good in the seventh inning. Lee went on top 1-0 in the first inning when Collier doubled, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a ground out by French. Delta State came right back to tie the game in the bottom of the inning when Tucker Jones tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Levi Lang.
The Flames went back up 2-1 in the second. Williams singled and scored when Youngblood doubled to pick up the RBI. The margin reached 3-1 in the third. Collier singled and went to third on a one-base hit by French. He scored on a sac fly by Franklin.
The Statesmen cut the lead to 3-2 in the fourth when Cade Greer had a one-base knock, reached second on a balk by the Lee pitcher and tallied on Austin Batts' single. Lee added what looked like an insurance run in the fifth when Aiden McClary got his first hit of the game and moved to third on the second double by Collier. McClary scored on Franklin's second sacrifice fly.
The Delta State crowd came alive in the fifth inning when Landon Holliman ripped a one-base hit. Jones reached on a fielder's choice that forced Holliman at second. Lang delivered what turned out to be one of his big blows of the contest when he drilled a two-run homer over the left-centerfield wall to tie the game at four.
The Statesmen put the winning run on the board in the seventh. Jones collected his second hit and advanced on a wild pitch. He scored his third run of the game on Lang's RBI single. Lang knocked in four of the Statesmen's five runs in the victory.
Collier led the Flames with three hits and two runs scored. French had two hits and an RBI and joined Collier as Lee's leading hitters. Zach Tierney was the starting pitcher for the Flames. He worked two innings, allowing three hits and one earned run. Cody Turner (2-5) was called on for the next six innings. He gave up six hits, four earned runs and was charged with the loss.
Colby Lafayette started for the Statesmen and pitched four innings and gave up seven hits and four earned runs. Dawson Muenzenmay (6-2) shut the Flames down. Over five innings, he surrendered only two hits and no earned runs, striking out five and walking none to pick up the win.
Coach Mark Brew's thoughts:
"We couldn't string together the offense like we've been recently, and our bats were kind of quiet for the 18 innings we played today. I thought we got good enough pitching in game two against Delta State, but we just couldn't get a big hit in a big moment. I'm proud of these guys. We had a really good tournament run, and now we'll have to see what our postseason future holds. I believe in this team and believe we are worthy of a regional bid and excited to see what happens this week."
